Kurbo was founded in July 2013 in Palo Alto, California by Joanna Strober, Mark Vershel and Thea Runyan. Strober had a teenage son who struggled with his weight. Unable to find a suitable weight loss program for children and teenagers, she collaborated with Runyan, who was a coach at the Pediatric Weight Control Program at Stanford Children’s Hospital, and Vershel to build a health and weight management program for adolescents. The program is based on research on pediatric weight control and is licensed from Stanford University Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital pediatric obesity program. It is known for its traffic light food classification system and portion sizing design.
