About Dr. Weinsier

Dr. Roland L. WeinsierDr. Roland L. Weinsier received medical training at the University of Florida in 1968 and completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Virginia in 1970. He received a doctorate degree in public health and nutrition from Harvard University in 1973. From 1988 to 1999, he served as Chair of the UAB Department of Nutrition Sciences, one of the first and largest nutrition departments located within a medical center. Under his leadership, the Department was ranked #2 in the nation in the 1993 US News & World Report survey of nutrition programs, it was designated an International Center of Excellence in Nutrition by Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1998, it was ranked #2 in NIH funding in 1998, and it was awarded one of eight NIH-Supported Clinical Nutrition Research Units in 1999.

Dr. Weinsier has been invited to serve on advisory panels for a number of federal organizations, including the U.S. Congress, Federal Trade Commission, National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine, Health Resources and Services Administration, US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and National Institutes of Health (NIH). He was a long-standing member of the NIH National Task Force for the Prevention and Treatment of Obesity. In 1975, he established the EatRight Weight Control Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, one of the nation’s longest-running programs. In 1984 he chaired a national committee that published the first guidelines for professional weight control programs, guidelines which were adopted by the American Medical Association. Dr. Weinsier served on the USDA/NIH Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee to prepare the year 2000 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

As a clinician, Dr. Weinsier has been recognized as among the Best Doctors in America, in 1994, 1998, and again in 1999. He has been honored nationally as an outstanding medical educator, having received the 1995 Award for Excellence in Medical-Nutrition Education by the American Society for Clinical Nutrition. He has also authored two nutrition texts for health professionals, Fundamentals of Clinical Nutrition and Handbook of Clinical Nutrition, the latter of which has sold over 40,000 copies.

Dr. Weinsier’s research focuses on the role of metabolism in the causation of obesity. He demonstrated that resting metabolic rates were similar in obesity-prone and obesity-resistant women. The results suggest that the resting metabolic rate is not lower in obesity-prone persons and does not explain their weight-gain tendency. Further, the fact that resting metabolic rates of obesity-prone women remain appropriate for their body size, before and after weight loss, refutes the suggestion that a metabolic “set-point” predisposes persons to certain body weight. By contrast, he showed that daily physical activity contributes significantly to the different weight-gain patterns of the obesity-prone vs. obesity-resistant women. Dr. Weinsier’s studies have also demonstrated that African-American women, as a group, have significantly greater energy efficiency and lower-calorie requirements than Caucasian women. The contribution of these factors and inadequate physical activity may contribute importantly to the greater weight-gain tendency of this population.

Festschrift Event Dr. Weinsier Remembered