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JAMES HILL, PhD, NEW CHAIR OF NUTRITION SCIENCES AND DIRECTOR OF NUTRITION OBESITY RESEARCH CENTER AT UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, BIRMINGHAM

James O. Hill, PhD, has been named chair of the University of Alabama at Birmingham's (UAB's) Department of Nutrition Sciences and also the director of the UAB Nutrition Obesity Research Center. Hill is cofounder of the America on the Move program, a nonprofit fitness program that works with people to make small lifestyle changes-like adding 2000 steps or eliminating 100 calories each day-in order to help them improve their health and manage their weight. In 1994, he cofounded the National Weight Control Registry, which today is the largest prospective investigation of long-term successful weight-loss maintenance, tracking more than 10 000 people who have lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off for an extended amount of time. He believes in the adage of Hippocrates that "if we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have the safest way to health."

  
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Dr Hill comes to UAB from the University of Colorado (UC), where he was director of the Center for Human Nutrition at UC Health Sciences and director of the UC Anschutz Medical Campus Nutrition and Obesity Research Center for more than 2 decades. Moreover, with a research career of more than 30 years, Hill has published more than 550 scientific articles and delivered lectures around the world about weight management. From 2008 to 2010, Jim served as president of the American Society for Nutrition. He has also served as president of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity and as vice president of the International Association for the Study of Obesity. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2014.

 

Congratulations, Jim!

 

USDA AND HHS ANNOUNCE 2020 DIETARY GUIDELINES ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEMBERS

The Secretaries of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) appointed 20 nationally recognized scientists to serve on the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, and they had their first meeting a month ago. They began by examining infant milk feeding practices, focusing on the various decisions or choices parents and caregivers must make: whether they will feed human milk, and if so how long, how long will it be the exclusive feed, how will it be fed, and will there be mixed feeding (human milk with formula). The Committee also began to examine the evidence for complementary feedings, that is, complementation with other foods to human milk or formula. They are examining the timing of introduction of complementary foods and also the types and amounts of various foods and their effects on allergies, asthma, growth and development, developmental milestones, micronutrient status, and bone health. This is an enormous task, and the committee is being greatly assisted by evidence reviews that have been compiled over the past few years in preparation for the review. The committee also examined flavor exposures and feeding practices upon acceptability of foods in infant feeding. Repeated exposure does seem to increase the infant or young child's acceptance of certain foods, such as fruits and vegetables. They are also examining different types of feeding practices. One major finding in all of these areas is that there are as many questions in infant feeding as there are answers, and clearly much more research needs to be done. The committee's work, along with public and agency comments, will help inform USDA and HHS as they develop the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

 

Congratulations to the following hardworking members, who are the following:

 

Barbara Schneeman, PhD

 

University of California, Davis

 

Chair, Dr Schneeman is the former Dean of the College of Agriculture at the University of California, Davis, and has a long and distinguished record of public service both at the Food and Drug Administration and at USAID.

 

Ronald Kleinman, MD

 

Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School

 

Vice Chair, Dr Kleinman is a superb pediatrician and long-time editor of the Handbook of Pediatric Nutrition, published by the Committee on Nutrition of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

 

Jamy Ard, MD

 

Wake Forest School of Medicine

 

Jamy Ard, MD, is an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention and the Department of Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. He is also codirector of the Wake Forest Baptist Health Weight Management Center, directing medical weight management programs.

 

Regan Bailey, PhD, MPH, RD

 

Purdue University

 

Dr Bailey is a Nutrition Today Editorial Board member and well known for her work on the nutritional epidemiology of intakes of food and dietary intake.

 

Lydia Bazzano, MD, PhD

 

Tulane University and Ochsner Health System

 

As a clinician-investigator trained in epidemiology and internal medicine, Dr Lydia Bazzano has expertise in a broad range of clinical research with a focus on cardiovascular disease and its risk factors, with an emphasis on the role of cardiometabolic factors, including diet, obesity, lipids, and glucose, in the development of vascular disease and its consequences over the life course.

 

Carol Boushey, PhD, MPH, RD

 

University of Hawaii

 

Dr Boushey, another member of our Nutrition Today Editorial Board, is a nutritional epidemiologist who is involved in the multiethnic study at Queen's Hospital and the University of Hawaii. She is also the coeditor of a well-known textbook, Nutrition in Preventive Medicine.

 

Teresa Davis, PhD

 

Baylor College of Medicine

 

Dr Davis is the editor of the Journal of Nutrition and a distinguished scientist whose work has included both experimental nutrition in animals and in humans. She is professor at Baylor and also a senior nutrition scientist at the Child Nutrition Research Center at Baylor, which is one of USDA's human nutrition research centers.

 

Kathryn Dewey, PhD

 

University of California, Davis

 

Dr Dewey is world renowned for her studies of nutrition and lactation and other work in infant nutrition.

 

Sharon Donovan, PhD, RD

 

University of Illinois, Urbana

 

Dr Donovan investigates some of the most pressing health issues facing children and families, including promoting a healthy gut, brain, and microbiome through diet; preventing childhood obesity and picky eating behaviors; and reducing the severity of symptoms in children with autism.

 

Steven Heymsfield, MD

 

Louisiana State University, Pennington Biomedical Research Center

 

Dr Heymsfield has done some of the foundational work in body composition and studies on the etiology, pathogenesis, and treatment of obesity.

 

Heather Leidy, PhD

 

University of Texas at Austin (summer 2019)

 

Dr Leidy is associate professor at the University of Texas. Her research focuses on the relationship between protein and weight management, particularly in young people. She also studies the connection between breakfast consumption, circadian rhythms, and sleep behavior.

 

Richard Mattes, PhD, MPH, RD

 

Purdue University

 

Dr Mattes is a sensory scientist whose work on taste has plowed new ground; his latest studies are on sweetness.

 

Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, PhD, RD

 

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

 

Dr Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, PhD, RD, is the Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor of Nutrition and Medicine and chair of the Department of Nutrition, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has focused her career on diabetes, including the epidemiology and natural history of type 1 and type 2 diabetes in children and adults.

 

Timothy Naimi, MD, MPH

 

Boston University

 

Dr Naimi is a physician and associate professor at Boston University's School of Medicine and Public Health. A major research interest is alcohol use and abuse.

 

Rachel Novotny, PhD, RDN, LD

 

University of Hawaii

 

Dr Novotney is professor and director, Children's Healthy Living Center of Excellence, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawai'i at Manoa. She has interests in global nutrition, breastfeeding, and growth.

 

Joan Sabate, DrPH, MD

 

Loma Linda University

 

Dr Sabate is a nutritional epidemiologist who has done many studies of a cohort of Seventh Day Adventists and their dietary intakes and health status. He has also done studies of the role of nuts in nutrition.

 

Linda Snetselaar, PhD, RD

 

University of Iowa

 

Dr Snetselaar is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and well known for her clinical nutrition work in cardiovascular and renal disease prevention, as well as for her work in many clinical trials of dietary therapies.

 

Linda is another member of the Nutrition Today Editorial Board

 

Jamie Stang, PhD

 

University of Minnesota

 

Dr Stang's work on nutrition and weight status in pregnancy, child and adolescent nutrition, behavioral counseling in child obesity, and obesity among women of childbearing age is well known.

 

Elsie Taveras, MD, MPH

 

Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard Chan School or Public Health

 

Dr Taveras is a pediatrician with interest in early origins of obesity, health disparities, and obesity.

 

Linda Van Horn, PhD, RDN, LD

 

Northwestern University

 

Dr Van Horn is a dietitian and nutritional epidemiologist whose work on dietary risks and treatment of coronary heart disease is especially well known. She is a past chair of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee and past editor of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.