Louise Baur

Biography

Professor Louise Baur is a paediatrician and an internationally renowned childhood obesity researcher. She has a special interest in the prevention and management of child and adolescent obesity and has for over 20 years also studied various aspects of adult obesity. Professor Baur has been instrumental in raising the profile of childhood obesity as an issue of clinical and public health importance, in Australia and internationally. Her body of research has helped define management efforts around childhood obesity and improved our understanding of the factors that help prevent obesity in the first few years of life. Her work also has helped define predictors of obesity and the metabolic syndrome in young people, and the complications of obesity. Professor Baur is the Director of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in the Early Prevention of Obesity in Childhood and is an active member of The Prevention Research Collaboration, a specialised research group within the Sydney School of Public Health. Professor Baur engages widely with professional organisations and the community. She is a member of the WHO Ad Hoc Working Group on Science and Evidence for Ending Childhood Obesity and Associate Director of the University of Sydney’s WHO Collaborating Centre in Physical Activity, Nutrition & Obesity. Prof Baur is a Founding Fellow and Council Member of the Australian Academy of Health & Medical Sciences (launched in March 2015). She is a member of the Governing Board of the Sydney Children's Hospitals Network and recently completed three terms as a Director of World Vision Australia (2007-2016). She has received numerous awards recognising her many contributions. In 2010 Professor Baur was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) ‘for service to medicine, particularly in the field of paediatric obesity as a researcher and academic, and to the community through support for a range of children's charities’.

Research Interest

Professor Baur's research interests cover numerous aspects of obesity, prediabetes, nutrition and physical activity in children and adolescents. She has extensive experience in collaborative clinical studies dealing with obesity and insulin resistance in families and young people and in public health interventions involving new mothers, children, young people and families. In particular her research explores strategies for (a) the management of child and adolescent obesity, (b) the prevention of obesity during childhood and adolescence, and (c) provision of health services for people affected by obesity. She is involved in a broad range of clinical trials and population health studies in Australia and internationally. These include: