David Katz partners with Juice Plus+<sup style="font-size: .45em; vertical-align: top;">®</sup> to teach kids’ nutrition and combat childhood obesity

Dr. David Katz is a nationally renowned nutrition and preventive health expert who focuses on teaching kids’ nutrition. As a nutrition columnist for O, The Oprah Magazine, a medical contributor for ABC News, and a syndicated health/nutrition columnist for The New York Times, he is one of the most influential physicians in North America today. Even with a dossier of roles in nutrition education, Dr. Katz felt the need to do even more to help “turn the tide” on the epidemic of obesity among our children today. He created a program called “Nutrition Detectives” to educate children about making healthy food choices.

“I couldn’t ask for a better ‘partner in prevention’ than Juice Plus+," Dr. Katz says.

Dr. Katz and his work have been featured in three cover-story articles in TIME magazine. He is a frequent contributor to other publications including: Newsweek, Men's Health, Shape, Fitness, Muscle & Fitness, Child, Parenting, Glamour, Woman's World, Ladies Home Journal, Business Week, Marie Claire, Prevention, Better Homes & Gardens, Real Simple, and US News & World Report. In addition to ABC News, Dr. Katz has appeared on NBC, PBS, CNN, BBC, and NPR. His op-ed pieces have run in newspapers around the country including The Wall Street Journal. He even writes a daily blog for Prevention magazine.

Dr. Katz is not only well known in the public sphere, but he is also highly respected by his peers. He has published nearly 150 scientific articles and chapters and 12 books to date, including a nutrition textbook for clinicians that is used by the Harvard School of Medicine, among others academic institutions. Dr. Katz has presented his research and insights at annual meetings of The American Diabetes Association, The American College of Cardiology, The American Heart Association, The American Dietetic Association, The North American Association for the Study of Obesity, The American College of Preventive Medicine, The American Public Health Association, The Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada, and The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

With this extensive range of contributions to the nutrition industry, Dr. Katz wanted to further advance the message of maintaining optimal health through diet and lifestyle changes. This led Dr. Katz to found a non-profit organization called Turn the Tide Foundation, which is dedicated to “turning the tide” of obesity and chronic disease in North America – especially among children.

“The mission of Turn the Tide is to advance creative and practical real-world strategies for empowering families to achieve optimal nutrition, robust good health, and sustainable weight control,” he explains.

Under the auspices of Turn the Tide, Dr. Katz and his wife Catherine have developed an innovative nutrition-training program for elementary school students and their parents called Nutrition Detectives. “Nutrition Detectives is a fun program for children,” Dr. Katz says. “It's also a chance to improve the nutrition and health of the whole family by unleashing a little ‘nutrition detective’ on the household.”

Nutrition Detectives gives kids the knowledge they need to make healthier food choices – by learning to read and interpret food labels, for example. Dr. Katz offers young “nutrition detectives” simple advice, such as:

    Don't be fooled by the big letters on the front of the package.
    The first ingredient is always the biggest.
    The program has been taught in schools throughout the country and adopted district-wide in Independence, Missouri.

When Dr. Katz wanted to bring Nutrition Detectives to life and to more families and classrooms via DVD, he turned to his friends at Juice Plus+ to underwrite the project. “I know they are as impassioned about the cause of childhood nutrition as I am,” he explains, “so I knew they'd be willing to help.”

The resulting Nutrition Detectives DVD is available free to educators and parents anywhere on the Turn the Tide website (TurnTheTideFoundation.org). Through special effects and simulation, Dr. Katz uses his “magic classroom” to take six young characters on a journey toward making healthy lifestyle choices.

“The unhealthy dietary choices children make today have severe and, often, adverse effects on their health as adults,” says Dr. Katz. “Through the new Nutrition Detectives video curriculum, teachers are able to widely educate today's youth on how to lead healthy lifestyles that will benefit them tomorrow.”

The complete Nutrition Detectives classroom program includes the new DVD, as well as a supplementary PowerPoint presentation, teacher's curriculum guide, and student questionnaire.

“I couldn't ask for a better ‘partner in prevention’ than Juice Plus+,” Dr. Katz says.

The feeling is certainly mutual.

Board-certified in both internal medicine and preventive medicine/public health, Dr. Katz has practiced primary care/internal medicine for more than 20 years. He earned his B.A. from Dartmouth College, his M.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and his M.P.H. from the Yale University School of Public Health. He served as director of medical studies in Public Health at the Yale University School of Medicine and currently serves there as an associate professor (adjunct) of public health practice.

Dr. Katz was elected to the governing board of the American College of Preventive Medicine in 2002 and as president of the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine in 2005. He has been recognized three times by the Consumers’ Research Council of America as one of America's top physicians in preventive medicine, most recently in 2009. Also in 2009, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Yale Alumni in Public Health and was named one of the 25 most influential people in the lives of children by Children's Health. He was the 2011 recipient of the Katharine Boucot Sturgis Award from the American College of Preventive Medicine, the most prestigious award the College confers, awarded for illustrious career contributions to the field of preventive medicine. Also in 2011, Dr. Katz received the Lenna Frances Cooper Award from the American Dietetic Association (now known as the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics) for illustrious contributions to the field of nutrition. In 2012, he was the first inductee into the Marketing Disease Prevention in America hall of fame for efforts related to childhood obesity control. Also in 2012, Katz received the annual J. Warren Perry Award and lectureship at the University at Buffalo and was the Stanley P. Mayers Endowed Lecturer at Penn State University.