Marie Edana Corcoran Endowed Chair in Pediatric Obesity and Diabetes
Dr. Peter Katzmarzyk
Marie Edana Corcoran Endowed Chair in Pediatric Obesity and Diabetes
Associate Executive Director for Population and Public Health Sciences
Peter Katzmarzyk, PhD, FACSM, FAHA, FTOS is an internationally recognized leader in the field of pediatric obesity. He has published over 470 peer-reviewed scientific articles and book chapters on the topic of obesity, physical activity and metabolic disorders such as diabetes. He is currently an Associate Editor for Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, an editorial board member for Pediatric Exercise Science and Metabolic Syndrome and Related Disorders, as well as a founding member of the editorial board of Pediatric Obesity, an international journal devoted to publishing the highest quality, cutting edge research on the prevention and management of pediatric obesity.
Dr. Katzmarzyk has over two decades of experience in conducting large clinical and population-based studies among children and youth. He has been an active collaborator on several large cohort studies of children’s health, including the Quebec Family Study, the Canada Fitness Survey, the Physical Activity Longitudinal Study, and the Bogalusa Heart Study. He recently served as the Principal Investigator of the International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment (ISCOLE), which was an investigation of the correlates of obesity involving over 7000 children from 12 different countries. ISCOLE represents a multi-national collaboration among all world regions, and represents a global effort to increase research understanding, capacity and infrastructure in childhood obesity.
In addition to his research efforts, Dr. Katzmarzyk has been involved in several national initiatives related to physical activity, obesity and health. He recently served on the 2018 U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This committee was charged with reviewing the scientific evidence on the relationship between physical activity and health, and writing the evidence report for the federal government. Dr. Katzmarzyk also chairs the Research Advisory Committee for the United States Report Card on Physical Activity and Health for Children and Youth, which is a project of the National Physical Activity Plan Alliance. The Report Card is an advocacy tool designed to increase awareness of the health concerns associated with physical inactivity and obesity among children and youth.
Locally, Dr. Katzmarzyk has served as the Chair of the Conference Organizing Committee for the Annual Childhood Obesity Public Health Conference which has been convened at Pennington Biomedical Research Center for the last ten years, which attracts over 300 health care workers and child health advocates annually from across the state.
