Joy Baeur of The TODAY Show Reaches Students

Last Friday, nutrition expert and SPH alumni Joy Bauer returned to the School to tell students about her career path to The TODAY Show and the development of the Joy Bauer Nutrition Center, one of the nation's largest centers of its kind. Bauer also shared her opinions about the importance of developing nutritious habits.

SPH student and dean's office assistant Michele Striano attended the event, and today, she's the voice of The Healthy Turtle.

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On Friday morning, everyone who attended Joy Bauer's lecture was greeted with a warm and smiling face. Bauer, the nutritionist for The TODAY Show, was asked to speak at the University and did so graciously. Joy, a graduate of Maryland, spoke of her journey from applying to classes at Maryland to landing her current dream job as the nutritionist on The TODAY Show.


While at UMD, she majored in Kinesiology, and on Friday she spoke humorously about leaving orientation her freshman year, not knowing how to pronounce what she had declared as her major. What a long way she's come; she spoke about what she is doing now in her career, and how much she truly does love her job.

In addition to being on television, she runs a very large nutrition center. “We cover everything from women who want to loose two ounces to those needing to loose large amounts of weight,” she said of The Joy Bauer Nutrition Center. Her facility handles other health related issues, such as helping people to lower or raise blood pressure through lifestyle changes and eating habits.

While speaking about this topic, Joy spoke of several success stories she has encountered through her years. I really enjoyed this part of her talk, because she really got the point across of how much a healthy lifestyle can change your life for the better. One of the stories she spoke of was about a young boy who came from an obese family, and he was obese himself. He was really shy and did not have much self confidence. Through working with Joy he was able to drop over 100 pounds, which helped him boost his self confidence. In addition to this story, she told other stories that were very positive and helped everyone see what a struggle some people have to maintain a healthy weight, but how rewarding it is to be able to help them reach that goal.

To drive home her point of the importance of nutrition even more, she shared her top ten reasons why nutrition is the best field. This segment included pictures of her being bench pressed by Shaq, and posing with other celebrities such as Hulk Hogan and Lady Gaga. Her top reason for studying nutrition: being able to help others.

I greatly enjoyed this talk and would gladly attend another event if and when she returns to campus.