Barbara J. Moore

Dr. Barbara J. Moore is president and chief executive officer of Shape Up America!, a national campaign to raise awareness of obesity as a health issue. Committed to providing achievable, science-based messages about healthy eating, physical activity and weight management, Shape Up America! was founded by the late U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, M.D. in 1994. Dr. Moore joined the campaign in June 1995 and serves as president and CEO. In this capacity, she serves as the key liaison with the scientific, professional and business communities.

Considered a leading authority on the epidemic of obesity in the United States, Dr. Moore served on the Food and Nutrition Board’s Committee on Prevention of Obesity in Children and Youth, which produced the landmark 2005 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report: Preventing Childhood Obesity: Health in the Balance. She currently serves on the editorial board of Nutrition Today, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Society for Nutrition for a dietetics and general nutrition audience. She maintains an active membership in The Obesity Society, the American Society for Nutrition, and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Before joining Shape Up America!, Dr. Moore served as a Special Expert at the National Institutes of Health, (NIH - NIDDK) in the Division of Nutrition Research Coordination (DNRC). During that time she served on two inter-agency nutrition committees and contributed to the development of the 1994 Progress Report to the Assistant Secretary of Health on the nutrition objectives of Healthy People 2000.

In 1993 and again in 1995, Dr. Moore joined the Executive Office of the President in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) where she was involved in domestic and international science policy formation. From 1989 to 1993, she was chief nutritionist and primary technical policy advisor worldwide for Weight Watchers International.

Moore has authored or co-authored 2 dozen publications in peer-reviewed journals, 9 book chapters and one set of guidelines on the treatment of adult obesity. She has co-edited 1 textbook: Textbook of Obesity: Biological, Psychological and Cultural Influences. Wiley-Blackwell Publishers. May 2012. She has served on two committees appointed by the Institute of Medicine that generated the following reports:

• Subcommittee on Military Weight Management, Committee on Military Nutrition Research, Food and Nutrition Board, Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Weight Management: State of the Science and Opportunities for Military Programs. 2003. National Academies Press, Washington, DC [www.nap.edu]

• Committee on Prevention of Obesity in Children and Youth, Food and Nutrition Board and Board on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Preventing Childhood Obesity: Health in the Balance. 2005, Koplan JP, Liverman CT, and Kraak, VI, Editors, The National Academies Press, Washington, DC [www.nap.edu]

Moore received her Ph.D. in nutritional sciences from Columbia University. Her postdoctoral training in nutrition and physiology was at the University of California at Davis. She was appointed Henry Rutgers Fellow at Rutgers University, Department of Nutritional Sciences (1987-1989); General Manager of Program Development at Weight Watchers International (1989-1993). She holds a B.A. in philosophy from Skidmore College and a master’s degree in nutrition from Columbia University’s Institute of Human Nutrition (IHN). In 2013 she was elected Fellow of The Obesity Society (FTOS).