James O. Hill, PhD, is professor of pediatrics and medicine and director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado at Denver. He holds a BS degree from the University of Tennessee and MS and PhD degrees from the University of New Hampshire in physiological psychology.
Hill served as chair of the first World Health Organization Consultation on Obesity in 1997. He is a past president of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity (NASSO). He was also a member of the Expert Panel on Obesity of the National Institutes of Health that developed the first U.S guidelines for the treatment and prevention of obesity.
Hill has published more than 350 scientific articles and book chapters in the area of obesity. He is also the author of the Step Diet Book, published in June 2004. Much of his writing focuses specifically on the importance of physical activity in weight management. In particular, Hill is interested in how diet and physical activity influence body weight and how a high-fat diet and inactivity may contribute to the current global epidemic of obesity.
He is the recipient of the 2007 TOPS award from The Obesity Society. Hill has also received the Centrum Center and McCollum awards from the American Society for Nutrition.
Hill is a co-founder of the National Weight Control Registry, a registry of individuals who have been successful in maintenance of a reduced body weight. He is co-founder of America on the Move, a national weight gain prevention initiative that aims to inspire Americans to make small changes in how much they eat and how much they move to prevent weight gain.
Hill is leading an effort in Denver to make that community the healthiest in the U.S.