In March 2011, Dr. Marion Nestle was recognized as a public health hero by the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health. Her online citation notes that she was honored for “her national leadership in nutrition policy and her guidance in stemming serious nutritionally-based diseases, including obesity.”
In reading about her accomplishments, I noted Dr. Nestle as a good example of a researcher who also engages in education, public awareness raising and, yes, advocacy. Whether or not you agree with her focus on the food industry (or her conclusions), her funders and supporters can rest assured that she is leveraging data and analysis to help make her case. With so much nutrition information available online and elsewhere it is good to see public experts actively engaged in some of the nutrition policy debates.
Copied from the UC-Berkeley, School of Public Health’s Public Health Heroes Awards Ceremony website:
2011 NATIONAL HERO
Marion Nestle
Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, New York UniversityFor her national leadership in nutrition policy and her guidance in stemming serious nutritionally-based diseases, including obesity
Every day, Marion Nestle speaks to reporters, business people, or government officials, doing her best to make the public aware of the ways in which the food industry’s advertising machine and political lobby create national nutritional trends, and, in some cases, affect national policy. Nestle draws on her own research examining scientific and socioeconomic influences on food choice, obesity, and food safety, emphasizing the role of food marketing. Her books established her as an advocate for public health nutrition and a food industry gadfly, alerting people to the unethical practices of this enormously powerful lobby.
Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, which she chaired from 1988 to 2003. She is also professor of sociology at NYU and visiting professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell….[continued]
