Dr T Colin Campbell: 5 Things We Must Do To Inspire The Next Generation About Sustainability And The Environment
An Interview With Penny Bauder
Join environmentally inspired communities to tell them the most impactful thing to do is to eat the right food — too many environmentalists don’t know the food connection.
As part of my series about what we must do to inspire the next generation about sustainability and the environment, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. T. Colin Campbell, PhD.
T. Colin Campbell, PhD has been dedicated to the science of human health for more than 60 years. His primary focus is on the association between diet and disease, particularly cancer. Although largely known for the China Study–one of the most comprehensive studies of health and nutrition ever conducted, and recognized by The New York Times as the “Grand Prix of epidemiology”–Dr. Campbell’s profound impact also includes extensive involvement in education, public policy, and laboratory research.
Dr. Campbell’s research experience includes both laboratory experiments and large-scale human studies. He has received over 70 grant-years of peer-reviewed research funding (mostly with NIH), served on grant review panels of multiple funding agencies, actively participated in the development of national and international nutrition policy, and authored over 350 research papers, most published in peer-reviewed science journals. Throughout his career, he has confronted a great deal of confusion surrounding nutrition and its effects. It is precisely this confusion that he has focused so much on, in recent years.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?
I grew up on a dairy farm, as the oldest son milking cows from the time I was 10 years old, personally hand-milking two cows for the family, then at about 12–13 years of age, milking 20–25 cows by machines (with additional help), still milking some by hand because those machines were not fully efficient. My father, an immigrant from Northern Ireland at age 7, arriving through Ellis Island with his family in 1908, then only was able to attend two years of formal education. Thus, he was intensely interested in my having an education that passed him by but not to the local rural high school (50+ miles west of Washington DC). So I traveled by car 102 miles per day to attend free public junior and senior high schools in Washington, graduating high school in 1952. The first year he drove, then I drove the next 4 years with younger siblings.
I then attended Penn State (BS in veterinary science, 1956, having been admitted early to U Georgia Vet School for one year), Cornell graduate school (MS ’56 and PhD ’62 in nutritional biochemistry) mainly focused on undertaking my doctoral dissertation research advancing the consumption of more animal protein.
Was there an “aha moment” or a specific trigger that made you decide you wanted to become a scientist or environmental leader? Can you share that story with us?
I went to Cornell because I received unsolicited scholarships, thanks to my Penn State advisor, my Univ Georgia advisor and two professors at Cornell. I thought I was getting into ‘medical research’, whatever that meant. After completing my PhD, I then worked for one year at a commercial lab testing toxic chemicals, mostly for the FDA. I then was offered a research position at MIT trying to isolate an unknown very toxic chemical in the Agent Orange spray used in the Vietnam War. It turned out to be the highly toxic ‘dioxin’. I then was offered a faculty position in nutritional biochemistry at Virginia Tech, that also included my coordination of a State Department project in the Philippines to develop a nutrition program for malnourished children in the Philippines.
I early became very interested in the fundamental concept of science, designed to search for truths in a way that is objective, transparent and the result of critical review by others, all hopefully leading to publication in peer-reviewed science journals. Seeking truth without subjectivity, especially my own, has been for me quite special, as my father said a few times, “Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. I feel as if I have had many ‘aha’ moments’. If I must choose one, it was my finally coming to terms with the evidence that nutrition should be defined differently than it is. We have long believed that nutrition is best explained by the effects of single nutrients operating by single mechanisms on specific disease events. This is wrong. Nutrition is best explained as the combined effects of all the virtually countless nutrients in food working together. It is a phenomenon that begs the question how does this amazing unifying force work.
Is there a lesson you can take out of your own story that can exemplify what can inspire a young person to become an environmental leader?
Yes, whatever choice is made for a lifetime career, incidental or purposeful, one should do it as well as one can from the beginning. Create a personal reputation of being diligent, being yourself, and being honest. Others will take notice. If one’s first career choice needs to change, that reputation will carry forward these same characteristics.
Can you tell our readers about the initiatives that you or your company are taking to address climate change or sustainability? Can you give an example for each?
We are mainly refining the message, through science, that if we choose to eat the right food, plant-based and whole, this will have the single greatest impact, first made apparent to me in lectures that I gave at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington.
Can you share 3 lifestyle tweaks that the general public can do to be more sustainable or help address the climate change challenge?
Eat plants. Eat them, as much as possible, in the whole food form so that Mother Nature can choose which combination of nutrients to use for the infinite number of health promotion events. Learn how to produce these foods in environmentally sustainable ways.
Ok, thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview: The youth-led climate strikes of September 2019 showed an impressive degree of activism and initiative by young people on behalf of climate change. This was great, and there is still plenty that needs to be done. In your opinion, what are 5 things parents should do to inspire the next generation to become engaged in sustainability and the environmental movement? Please give a story or an example for each.
- Feed them the right food.
- Help them to learn the reasons why this food should be eaten.
- Join environmentally inspired communities to tell them the most impactful thing to do is to eat the right food — too many environmentalists don’t know the food connection.
- Have them take some responsibility for growing food, perhaps a garden if space is available, a raised bed if space is limited.
- When old enough, encourage them to work within communities/companies that are dedicated not to use fossil fuel driven operations.
How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?
Contribute to worthy community programs dedicated to environmentally friendly activities, especially those using young people if possible. I have often thought that businesses who are community friendly are the benefactors of more business, although I am also very much aware that aggregation of power by being bigger and bigger beyond community reach is a trend that is worrisome.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I had several particularly important people, from my father who very early showed me how to read a newspaper (editorial page first, then front page, then sports page) and to work hard in the fields and a mother who had me work in the garden as much as I could, to several people who came into my early education and career experiences without my asking, on one occasion never having met me and offering me via a telegram a scholarship for graduate school (having learned of me from my major undergraduate advisor), to senior academics who sought me out for positions at MIT, Virginia Tech and my return to Cornell as a full professor. I still today never can forget how much they did.
You are a person of great influence and doing some great things for the world! If you could inspire a movement that would bring the greatest amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
Write articles for leading news outlets (Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, etc.) explaining how we can best explain nutrition — presenting a new heretofore unknown definition for nutrition, telling achievable personal health results and advocating equitable food and health policy. Surprising to many, this topic is not taught in medical schools and is not presented honestly to the public because progress in our world is generally regarded as that which drives capital acquisition, personally and publicly. It would be so much more sustainable if, on the topic of food and nutrition, we could give priority to the acquisition of health rather than wealth, both personally, societally and environmentally.
Do you have a favorite life lesson quote? Can you tell us how that was relevant to you in your own life?
The one and only, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
What is the best way for people to follow you on social media?
Unfortunately, I have never done social media — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. — having devoted most of my time to our non-profit online course program,the Plant Based Nutrition Certificate Course at the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies, now hosted by eCornell.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
