BROWNELL, Kelly D. 1951–

PERSONAL: Born October 31, 1951, in Evansville, IN; son of Arnold (in business) and Margaret (Egly) Brownell; married Mary Jo Gabriele, August 20, 1977; children: Matthew, Kevin, Kristy. Ethnicity: "White." Education: Purdue University, B.A., 1973; Rutgers University, M.S., 1975, Ph.D., 1997; Brown University, postdoctoral study, 1997. Hobbies and other interests: Tennis, music, travel.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of Psychology, Yale University, Box 208205, New Haven, CT 06520-8205.

CAREER: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, assistant professor, 1977–82, associate professor, 1982–87, professor of psychiatry, 1987–90; Yale University, New Haven, CT, professor of psychology and chair of department, and professor of epidemiology and public health, 1991–, director of Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, 1991–, master of Silliman College, 1994–2000, and fellow of Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy.

MEMBER: North American Association for the Study of Obesity (member of council, 1988–91; member of executive board), Society of Behavioral Medicine (fellow; president, 1988–89; member of board of directors), American Psychological Association (fellow; member of board of directors; president of Division of Health Psychology, 1989–90), American Psychological Society (charter fellow), Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy (president, 1988–89; member of board of directors), Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research (fellow), American Public Health Association, American College of Sports Medicine, American Institute of Nutrition, American Society of Clinical Nutrition, Council of University Directors of Clinical Psychology, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: Award for outstanding contribution to health psychology, Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 1984; Choice Award, outstanding academic book, American Library Association, 1989, for Handbook of Behavioral Medicine for Women; Gold Award, Health Journalism Awards, 1994, for article "The Dieting Maelstrom: Is It Possible and Advisable to Lose Weight?"

WRITINGS:

The Partnership Diet Program: The Do-It-Together Pounds-off Program That Doesn't Feel like a Diet, Rawson-Wade (New York, NY), 1980.

(With J. P. Foreyt) Handbook of Eating Disorders: Physiology, Psychology, and Treatment of Obesity, Anorexia, Bulimia, Basic Books (New York, NY), 1986.

The LEARN Program for Weight Management, American Health Publishing, 1987, ninth edition published as The LEARN Program for Weight Management: Lifestyle, Exercise, Attitudes, Relationships, Nutrition, 2004.

(Editor, with E. A. Blechman) Handbook of Behavioral Medicine for Women, Pergamon (New York, NY), 1988.

(With J. Rodin) The Weight Maintenance Survival Guide, American Health Publishing (Dallas, TX), 1990.

(Editor, with J. H. Wilmore) Eating, Body Weight, and Performance in Athletes: Disorders of Modern Society, Lea & Febiger (Philadelphia, PA), 1992.

(With Ross Andersen and William L. Haskell) The Health and Fitness Club Leader's Guide: Administering a Weight Management Program, American Health Publishing Company (Dallas, TX), 1992.

(Editor, with C. G. Fairburn) Eating Disorders and Obesity: A Comprehensive Handbook, Guilford (New York, NY), 1995, 2nd edition, 2002.

(Editor, with E. A. Blechman) Behavioral Medicine and Women: A Comprehensive Handbook, Guilford (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Katherine Battle Horgen) Food Fight: The Inside Story of the Food Industry, America's Obesity Crisis, and What We Can Do about It, Contemporary Books (Chicago, IL), 2004.

Contributor to professional journals, including Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Behavior Therapy, Behaviour Research and Therapy, Psychological Record, and American Journal of Diseases in Children. Coeditor, Annual Review of Behavior Therapy, 1982, 1984–85.

Authors works have been translated into Spanish and German.

SIDELIGHTS: Through his work as director of the Yale University Center for Eating and Weight Disorders and his many books focusing on the burgeoning problem of obesity in the United States, Kelly D. Brownell takes aim at the American food industry with his 2004 work, Food Fight: The Inside Story of the Food Industry, America's Obesity Crisis, and What We Can Do about It, written with Katherine Battle Horgen. In this book, as Reason contributor Jacob Sullum explained, the authors argue that "Americans have little real choice about what we eat, that we are prisoners of an environment in which food is too cheap, too tasty, and too convenient,"a situation that combines with the nation's sedentary lifestyle to create an epidemic of obesity. Indeed, by 2000, U.S. government surveys pronounced twenty percent of the adult population obese, and two-thirds of the country's adult population overweight. In response to these statistics, in the mid-1990s Brownell introduced the idea of a so-called "fat tax" in an editorial to the New York Times, and he has been promoting this strategy to fight fat since.

As Derek Yach explained in Bulletin of the World Health Organization, the authors of Food Fight "mix scientific facts with advocacy messages in appropriate and highly readable doses and draw upon a wide range of sources to emphasize that it's not all due to genes!" Brownell and Horgen cite the lack of walking caused by suburban sprawl's reliance on the automobile, increasing portion sizes of everything from coffee to "super-sized" take-out meals, to marketing sugary foods to children via cartoon programs as contributing factors to America's dramatic weight gain. The authors "provide useful advice to consumers," noted Yach, and also "urge action on many fronts," both through personal lifestyle changes and advocacy. While many commentators have taken issue with the push to involve the government in the issue of what citizens choose to heap upon their plate—as National Review contributor Andrew Stuttaford noted, "Highlighting fatness, that soft, billowing symbol of self-indulgence, reflects an agenda that has expanded beyond legitimate health concerns to embrace asceticism for its own sake" AScribe Health News Service contributor Michele Simon called Food Fight "an important contribution to the discourse around the obesity epidemic" due to its "clearly presented research and ideas for positive change."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

AScribe Health News Service, September 8, 2002, Michele Simon, "Battling the Bulge."

Bulletin of the World Health Organization, April, 2004, Derek Yach, review of Food Fight: The Inside Story of the Food Industry, America's Obesity Crisis, and What We Can Do about It, p. 308.

National Review, January 26, 2004, Andrew Stuttaford, "The Fat Police," p. 48.

Newsweek, September 15, 2003, Peg Tyre, "Fat Chat: 'Food Nag' Bites Back" (interview), p. 11.

Reason, August-September, 2004, Jacob Sullum, "The War on Fat: Is the Size of Your Butt the Government's Business?," p. 20.