Michelle Dalal, MD FAAP DipABLM earned her doctorate in medicine at SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine in New York State after receiving a BS degree in Nutrition with Honors at Cornell University College of Human Ecology.  She completed her residency in General Pediatrics at Hasbro Children’s Hospital, Brown University School of Medicine, Providence, Rhode Island.  She is board certified in Pediatrics and in Lifestyle Medicine, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and since 2003 has been both a clinical practitioner in pediatrics, and a member of the Pediatrics faculty at University of Massachusetts Medical School.  She is currently an Associate Professor in Pediatrics at University of Massachusetts Medical School, and serves patients at Reliant Medical Group, Milford MA.

For more than a decade, Dr. Dalal has been a recognized leader, in settings ranging from local to national, in advocating for pro-active  efforts by the pediatrics profession on behalf of oral health in children even as yoing as age one.  Over a period of years, she chaired the American Academy of Pediatrics Massachusetts Chapter’s Oral Health Committee, advised the Massachusetts Medical Society’s Oral Health Task Force and was Vice Chair of its Special Committee on Oral Health, authored a National Oral Health Curriculum, and was an author or co-author of six articles in peer-reviewed journals in this subject area, as well as serving on various related task forces. 

Dr. Dalal took on increased focus and responsibility in the Lifestyle Medicine field by becoming Co-Chair of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) Pediatric and Adolescent Member Interest Group in June 2016, then in Dec. 2017 was part of the first cohort ever to receive the Diplomate of the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine  credential.  She received an ACLM “Taste of Lifestyle Medicine Grant” for work on plant-based diets in 2019, co-authored “Preconception Care to the First Day of School:  Transforming Young Lives with Lifestyle Medicine” in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine in 2020, and began mentoring the Lifestyle Medicine Interest Group at University of Massachusetts Chan School of Medicine in 2021.  However, her most consequential efforts emerging from this in her practice, writing and lecturing, deal with utilization of Lifestyle Medicine in the prevention, management and treatment of adolescent depression.

Dr. Dalal has chaired the Massachusetts Medical Society Committee on Mental Health And Substance Use since 2020, and is a co-author of The Teen Lifestyle Medicine Handbook:  The Power of Healthy Living, published in 2020.  She is also the principal author of the “Lifestyle Medicine in the Care of Adolescent Girls” chapter, in Improving Women’s Health across the Lifespan, 2nd edition, published 2022.  Her current passions include educating medical residents and the community both about plant-based eating and about the research on Lifestyle Medicine’s potential in helping address teen depression.  She has said that it is a privilege to present at this conference and to collaborate with other Lifestyle Medicine minded practitioners locally, nationally and internationally.