Spring 2026 Environmental Health Committee Webinar Series 

Title: Obesogens: Unmasking the Metabolical Obesity Crisis
Date: Tuesday, April 14, 2026
Time: 6:00PM - 7:00 PM (PST)
Location: Zoom
Physician Lead/Moderator: Elizabeth Shepard, MD
Speaker: Robert Lustig, MD, MLS

 

Obesity is a global epidemic that has progressed over the last 50 years and led to many health consequences for populations around the world. Dr. Robert Lustig has been at the forefront of identifying the environmental factors contributing to this global epidemic with a focus on how sugar and processed foods adversely affect metabolism.  Dr. Lustig has also proposed that environmental chemicals interfere with hormonal signaling leading to obesity, a theory known as the obesogens model. In this webinar, Dr. Lustig will discuss the rise in obesogens in the form of insecticides, plastics, household chemicals, particulate matter, pharmaceuticals and food components and how they have permeated our food supply, water supply and the air we breathe.  Join us for this fascinating journey on how obesogens act throughout the lifespan and even across generations to affect the development of obesity. 

Biography - Robert Lustig, MD, MLS
Robert H. Lustig, M.D., MSL, is Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology and a member of the Institute for Health Policy Studies at University of California, San Francisco.  Dr. Lustig is a neuroendocrinologist, and an international authority on obesity, diabetes, nutrition, and neuroscience. Dr. Lustig graduated from MIT in 1976, and received his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College in 1980. He completed his pediatric residency at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in 1983, and his clinical fellowship at UCSF in 1984. From there, he spent six years as a research associate in neuroendocrinology at The Rockefeller University. In 2013, he received his Masters in Studies of Law from UC Hastings.  He was a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Tennessee, Memphis before coming to UCSF.  At St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, he was charged with the endocrine care of many children whose hypothalami had been damaged by brain tumors, or subsequent surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy and later developed severe obesity.
 
Dr. Lustig is one of the leaders of the global “anti-sugar” and “real food” movements to improve global health. He is the author of over 200 academic works, which connect the science of food and metabolism to the policy and the politics of the obesity and diabetes pandemics. He also comments on the role of industry tactics to promote hedonic substances and behaviors and the resulting aftermath of healthcare and societal devolution. He is a former director of the UCSF Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) Clinic, former chairman of the Obesity Task Force of the Pediatric Endocrine Society, a member of the Obesity Task Force of the Endocrine Society, and a member of the Pediatric Obesity Devices Committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Lustig is also the president of the nonprofit Institute for Responsible Nutrition, dedicated to reversing childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes. He consults for several childhood obesity advocacy groups and government agencies.

Dr. Lustig’s lecture “Sugar the Bitter Truth” was placed on You Tube in 2009 and has garnered over 25 million views. He is the author of 5 books, Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity and Disease (2012); Sugar Has 56 Names: A Shoppers Guide (2013); The Fat Chance Cookbook (2014); The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains (2017); and Metabolical: The Lures and Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition and Modern Medicine (2021).
 
 

6:00 PM - Welcome 
6:05 PM - Dr. Lustig Presentation
6:50 PM – Q and A 
7:00 - End