Walter C. Willett (born June 20, 1945) is an American physician and nutrition researcher. Currently, Willett is the

Fredrick John Stare Fredrick John Stare (April 11, 1910 – April 4, 2002) was an American nutritionist regarded as one of the country's most influential teachers of nutrition. Life and career Stare was born in Columbus, Wisconsin, and educated in chemistry a ...

Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at the

Harvard School of Public Health The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is the public health school of Harvard University, located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. The school grew out of the Harvard- MIT School for Health Officers, the nation's firs ...

and was the chair of its department of nutrition from 1991 to 2017. He is also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Willett is the

principal investigator In many countries, the term principal investigator (PI) refers to the holder of an independent grant and the lead researcher for the grant project, usually in the sciences, such as a laboratory study or a clinical trial. The phrase is also often us ...

of the second

Nurses' Health Study The Nurses Health Study is a series of prospective studies that examine epidemiology and the long-term effects of nutrition, hormones, environment, and nurses' work-life on health and disease development. The studies have been among the largest in ...

(NHS2 or NHS II), a compilation of studies regarding the health of older women and their risk factors for major chronic diseases. He has published more than 1,500 scientific articles regarding various aspects of diet and disease and is the second most cited author in clinical medicine. Willett is perhaps best known for his 2001 book ''Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy'' and the ensuing controversy over it. The book presents nutritional information and recommendations based on what was then the consensus of nutrition scientists, and is critical of many misconceptions about diet and nutrition, including ideas presented by guidelines from American organizations such as the USDA. Willett is frequently quoted by the media in articles regarding nutrition. In 2016, Semantic Scholar AI program included Willett on its list of top ten most influential biomedical researchers.

Education

* Diploma 1963,

Okemos High School Okemos High School is a public high school in Okemos, Michigan, United States. It is the only high school in the Okemos Public Schools district. It is located southeast of the main campus of Michigan State University, between Bennett and Jol ...

* B.S. 1966, Michigan State University * M.D. 1970, University of Michigan Medical School * M.P.H. 1973, Harvard School of Public Health * Dr.P.H. 1980, Harvard School of Public Health, Epidemiology * Chair, 1991, Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health

Influence on Harvard meal plans and cafeterias

7-person nutrition panel a 6th Annual Ivy League Vegan Conference at Harvard-03-26-2017 a 01

Willett has been actively involved in helping Harvard University food services to update their offerings along current nutritional guidelines. While his work has influenced the menu choices, students and Willett have noted that the menus still have a long way to go to reflect the currently available nutrition science.

Criticism

Willett's epidemiological research has been criticized by nutritionists and other researchers promoting an "obesity paradox" (Hughes, 2013). They believe he lacks a rigorous scientific base and often has contradictory findings. Willett has been a high-profile critic of research into the health risks of obesity by American epidemiologist Katherine Flegal and her colleagues at the

Center for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...

National Center for Health Statistics The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is a U.S. government agency that provides statistical information to guide actions and policies to improve the public health of the American people. It is a unit of the Centers for Disease Control ...

, going so far as to call it a "pile of rubbish ... No one should waste their time reading it." In 2013, the journal ''Nature'' ran an editorial rebuking Willett for the style and manner of his criticism, saying it misrepresented the complexity of the science involved and used inappropriate language in doing so. In 2021, Flegal published an article in the journal '' Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases'' accusing Willett and some of his Harvard School of Public Health colleagues of being part of "an aggressive campaign that included insults, errors, misinformation, social media posts, behind-the-scenes gossip and maneuvers, and complaints to her employer." Flegal wrote that the goal Willett and his allies "appeared to be to undermine and discredit her work," and that, "The controversy was something deliberately manufactured, and the attacks primarily consisted of repeated assertions of preconceived opinions." Flegal also questioned Willett's competence to criticize her team's statistical research, as he "was not a statistician and had no expertise in estimating the number of deaths associated with obesity."

Published works

* ''Nutritional Epidemiology'' 1998 * ''Eat, Drink, and be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide To Healthy Eating'' 2005 * ''Eat, Drink, and Weigh Less'' 2007 * ''The Fertility Diet'' 2008 * More than 1,000 scientific articles

Education

Influence on Harvard meal plans and cafeterias

Criticism

Published works

References

Further reading