Faculty Spotlight: Bastyr Hires Obesity Researcher

While it’s popular these days to blame the food industry -- and fast food in particular -- for the sharp increase in obesity over the past 30 years, Megan McCrory, PhD, the new research associate professor in the nutrition and exercise science department at Bastyr, is not only holding the food industry responsible for this. “If people choose to eat fast food or other calorically-dense food, they simply need to mind their portions so that they don’t get too many calories from it,” she says. Not satisfied with generalities, she’s trying to delve into the true heart of the matter, and she’s devoting her career to that pursuit.

McCrory is not alone in this quest. The field of obesity research is thriving. “Weight gain is a huge problem, and more people are more overweight than ever,” she notes. But exactly why people are overweight is a complex question. “Eating more calories than the body uses is the ultimate reason people become overweight, but no one knows exactly why people do this,” says McCrory. “We have ideas, but it’s probably not any one thing.”

Recently quoted in The Oprah Magazine’s August article, “How to Eat,” which was that issue’s feature story, McCrory has a slightly different perspective than some obesity researchers. Although the article highlights new findings that weight-regulating hormones trigger hunger signals in response to weight loss, thereby maintaining a certain “set point” in people’s weight, McCrory refuses to entertain the idea that people can’t lose weight. As she sees it, there’s a fine line between reducing the blame directed at overweight people and giving someone permission to stay at an unhealthy, disease-promoting weight. “Obesity researchers and medical professionals are starting to claim that there’s only a certain amount of weight people can lose. This claim then lowers people’s expectations. People think, ‘I can only lose 10 percent of my weight, so why bother?’ Although a 10 percent weight loss will lead to improved health, nearly everyone has the ability to lose more than this and improve his or her health even more.”

With a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in exercise science and a PhD in nutrition from the University of California at Davis followed by post-doctoral training in energy metabolism from Tufts University in Boston, McCrory knows a lot about health and weight loss. Before coming to Bastyr, she was a faculty researcher for five years at Tufts University at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging. There, she worked in an energy metabolism lab, analyzing which eating behaviors and choices cause people to overeat and gain weight.

While McCrory is not overweight herself, she isn’t a stranger to the problem. The main reason she become interested in nutrition and exercise is that she gained some weight as an adolescent. At the same time, her father started improving his diet as a weight-loss and heart-healthy strategy. He became knowledgeable about healthy eating and switched to nonfat milk, which McCrory initially resisted. “I thought it tasted terrible.”

But the nonfat milk has stuck, as well as many other healthy eating habits. McCrory’s diet now contains many whole grains, fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy. Although she is not a vegetarian, she usually eats like one, and she almost never eats red meat. Yet, “My diet is not flawless,” she says. She avoids white flour but occasionally indulges in it. She has an affinity for peanut butter but tries to minimize it. “I cut back on calories for awhile if the pounds creep up,” she says. She watches her portions, her daily calories, and enjoys many forms of exercise. She belongs to a health club where she uses many of the machines and does an occasional aerobics class. She runs, does in-line skating, bicycles, hikes and occasionally swims.

From the beginning, it seems, McCrory has been on the move. She is a native of Virginia, but her family moved somewhere new every few years since her dad was in the U.S. Coast Guard. He retired when she was about 12, and her family settled down in California. There she attended high school and college before planning a few of her own moves: first to Boston to further her research career at Tufts and now the Seattle area to work at Bastyr.

Choosing to come to Bastyr was a multi-factored decision. McCrory wanted to move to the Seattle area to live with her long-distance boyfriend and be closer to her parents who are in California. Once she started researching various possibilities, Bastyr University stood out as an exciting choice. She realized that she knew of another well-known obesity researcher, Jennifer Lovejoy, who had just become chair of the Bastyr nutrition department, so she contacted her for more information. McCrory was hired in the summer.

At Bastyr, McCrory will focus on conducting a variety of studies related to the prevention and treatment of obesity and related diseases, with a focus on eating behavior. She also studies the role of physical activity and is interested in improving measurement tools used by nutritionists, primary care providers and patients themselves. “I am trying to get a strong research program going with many different grants,” she says.

Being at Bastyr also provides her the opportunity to learn more about natural medicine. “Bastyr is a wonderful place, and the lifestyle-approach to being healthy fits my philosophy both personally and professionally,” she says. She also doesn’t have any complaints about her peaceful office with a great view of the herb garden. There are some changes, admittedly, that are easy to make.

For more information about Bastyr’s nutrition program, call 425.602.3330.

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