The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies has awarded the 2004 Rhoda G. and Bernard G. Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health to Albert J. Stunkard, professor emeritus of psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.  Consisting of a medal and $20,000, the prize will be presented at the IOM's annual meeting.

The Sarnat Prize is being awarded to Stunkard in recognition of the international scope and significance of his contributions to psychiatry and mental health, particularly his research on eating disorders.  A pioneer in the field of psychosomatic medicine, Stunkard's work has altered the public perception of eating disorders, and his seminal work has led to improvements in how these disorders are treated.  Stunkard was the first to describe binge eating disorder and night eating syndrome, and he has spent more than 50 years conducting clinical research on these disorders, as well as on obesity.  In the 1960s, Stunkard showed for the first time the strong relationship between socioeconomics and obesity, which became the subject of hundreds of later reports.  In the 1970s, he was instrumental in the development of behavioral therapy for obesity and anorexia nervosa, and in the 1980s, he developed the most widely used questionnaire to assess the psychological aspects of eating behavior.  His twin and adoption studies provided the strongest evidence yet for genetic influences on human obesity.

Stunkard received his undergraduate degree from Yale University in 1943 and an M.D. from Columbia University in 1945.  He served as a psychiatry resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital and as a psychiatry research fellow at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, and Cornell University.  He joined Cornell's faculty as assistant professor of medicine and has served as professor of psychiatry at both the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University.  He became the first full-time chair of the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is now an emeritus faculty member. 

Stunkard is a member of the Institute of Medicine and has served as president of the American Association of Chairs of Departments of Psychiatry (1966), the American Psychosomatic Society (1974), the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease (1982), the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research (1986), and the Society of Behavioral Medicine (1989).  He has received numerous awards, including the American Psychiatric Association's prizes for research (1960 and 1980), the American Psychiatric Association Distinguished Service Award (1994), the Society of Behavioral Medicine Distinguished Scientist Award (1994), the Academy of Eating Disorders Lifetime Achievement Award (1995), the International Association for the Study of Obesity Willendorf Award (1998), the New York Academy of Medicine Thomas William Salmon Award (1998), the University of Pennsylvania William Osler Patient-Oriented Research Award (1999), and the Cornell Alumni Council Distinguished Achievement Award (2002).  He serves on the editorial boards of seven journals in the fields of nutrition and behavioral medicine. In addition, he has published more than 400 reports, mostly in the fields of obesity and eating disorders, and has had 50 years of funding support from the National Institutes of Health.