Nancy F. Butte, RD, MPH, PhD

Member, Scientific Advisory Board
Professor, Baylor College of Medicine, USDA/ARS
Children’s Nutrition Research Center

Dr. Nancy Butte is a Professor of Pediatrics at the Children’s Nutrition Research Center Baylor College of Medicine. She is an internationally recognized expert in energy metabolism and childhood obesity. She serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Global Obesity Prevention Center (GOPC) at Johns Hopkins.

Nancy Butte received her BS in Nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley and completed her MPH and PhD in Nutritional Sciences at the same institution. Her current research focuses on environmental and genetic factors contributing to obesity in Hispanic children, and the development of community-centered childhood weight management programs. Presently, she is the principal investigator of the VIVA LA FAMILIA Study which was designed to identify genetic and environmental factors influencing childhood obesity in the Hispanic population. Dr. Butte and her colleagues were awarded the CDC Child Obesity Demonstration Project to test a systems approach to child obesity among low-income, ethnically diverse overweight and obese children.

She has co-authored 215 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. Dr. Butte has served as a consultant for US government and international agencies.

Representative publications:

• Butte NF, Cai G, Cole SA, Comuzzie AG. Viva la Familia Study: genetic and environmental contributions to childhood obesity and its comorbidities in Hispanic population. Am J Clin Nutr 2006;84(3):646-54.
• Butte NF, Christiansen E, Sorensen TI. Energy imbalance underlying the development of childhood obesity. Obesity, 2007;15(12):3056-66.
• Butte NF, Ekelund U, Westerterp KR. Assessment of physical activity using wearable monitors: measures of physical activity. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2012 Jan;44(1 Suppl 1):S5-S12.
• Comuzzie AG, Cole SA, Laston SL, Voruganti VS, Haack K, Gibbs RA, Butte NF. Novel genetic loci identified for the pathophysiology of childhood obesity in the Hispanic population. PLoS One. 2012;7(12):e51954. Epub 2012 Dec 14.

For a full publications list see here.