Walter C. Willett (born June 20, 1945)[1] is an American physician and nutrition researcher. Currently, Willett is the Fredrick John Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and was the chair of its department of nutrition from 1991 to 2017.[5][6][7] He is also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.[8]

Walter Willett
Willett (left) at the Agriculture, Nutrition, Health, and the Environment in Africa conference in LMA, the 9th Annual Nutrition and Global Health Symposium, 2017
Born	(1945-06-20) June 20, 1945 (age 77)[1] Hart, Michigan[2]
Nationality	American
Citizenship	USA
Education	Michigan State University (BS) University of Michigan Medical School (MD) Harvard University (MPH, Dr.PH)
Spouse	Gail Pettiford Willett[3]
Children	2[4]
Scientific career
Fields	nutrition, epidemiology, medicine, public health research
Institutions	Harvard Medical School Harvard School of Public Health

Willett is the principal investigator of the second Nurses' Health Study (NHS2 or NHS II), a compilation of studies regarding the health of older women and their risk factors for major chronic diseases.[9] He has published more than 1,500 scientific articles regarding various aspects of diet and disease[10] and is the second most cited author in clinical medicine.[11]

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.[12] Willett is frequently quoted by the media in articles regarding nutrition.[13][14][15][16]

In 2016, Semantic Scholar AI program included Willett on its list of top ten most influential biomedical researchers.[17]

Education

This section is in list format but may read better as prose. (December 2017)

• Diploma 1963, Okemos High School
• 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[8]

Influence on Harvard meal plans and cafeterias

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.[6][18]

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.[19]

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's National Center for Health Statistics, going so far as to call it a "pile of rubbish ... No one should waste their time reading it."[19] 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.[20]

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."[21] 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."[21]

Published works

• Nutritional Epidemiology 1998 ISBN 0-19-512297-6
• Eat, Drink, and be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide To Healthy Eating 2005 ISBN 0-684-86337-5
• Eat, Drink, and Weigh Less 2007 ISBN 1-4013-0892-9
• The Fertility Diet 2008 ISBN 0-07-149479-0
• More than 1,000 scientific articles[10]

References

Further reading

Wikiquote has quotations related to Walter Willett.

Scholia has a profile for Walter C. Willett (Q1133904).

• Transcript - The search for Optimal Diets: A Progress Report presented at the Honda Foundation
• Information on Eat, Drink, and be Healthy
• Hughes, V. (2013). The big fat truth. Nature, 497, 428-430.