Jean Mayer: You Are What You Eat

Jean Mayer was standing in the Dudley House lunch line waiting for a grilled tuna fish and cheese sandwich.

"Are you really eating here?" a student asked him. "I thought you, at least, would have enough sense to stay away."

Mayer laughed and moved down the line to carefully consider the choice of salads. He picked up a plastic wrapped three-bean salad and then paused before the fruit. "Are you sure you won't have some fruit?" he asked his luncheon guest. She shook her head. "Not even an apple?" he persisted. He filled a glass with lemonade.

A compactly built man with a French accent, Mayer radiates his special brand of charm even when he's ordering lunch. While passing through the line he has managed to say something to all the food service employees, the cashier, and several students. But he is not, by any means, an overbearing chatterbox. A man of outstanding accomplishments. Mayer is also exceptionally modest. He would rather talk about his work as master of Dudley House than about his many achievements in the field of nutrition.

Born in Paris in 1920, Mayer is the son of the famous French physiologist, Andre Mayer. Father and son have had remarkably similar careers. As students, both excelled in the humanities as well as the sciences. Both were decorated during world wars. Andre taught in a French medical school; Jean is a professor of nutrition, affiliated with the Harvard School of Public Health for 25 years. While Andre was instrumental in forming and leading the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Jean served on many U.N. nutrition committees and has advised Presidents Nixon and Ford on U.S. food policy.

Mayer is uncertain how much his father influenced his career choice. "I was always very interested in physiology," said Mayer, who earned a Ph.D. in physiological chemistry from Yale and a doctor of science from the University of Paris. "I don't think I had that many conversations with my father about my future or science until I embarked on that career."

Mayer could have easily followed his father and had a successful career in France, but he decided, after visiting the United States in 1939, that he would eventually make his home here. This decision often put him in an awkard position when serving on General de Gaulle's private staff during the war. Mayer says now that de Gaulle fed him "a lot of nasty and often very justified comments on the way the United States treated France."

In spite of these comments, Mayer liked working with the general. "I've had fairly close contact with several chiefs of state, and there's no doubt that de Gaulle was the star of the outfit," he said.

Mayer came to national attention in 1969 when he organized and chaired Nixon's First White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health. As a result of that conference, the number of food stamp and free school lunch recipients increased dramatically.

Nixon was interested in the conference, Mayer said, because hunger was the only social problem that he believed he could solve in one term. "It is a paradox of history that while Nixon was not elected to feed the poor, he did more in that area than Kennedy or Johnson," Mayer observed.

Mayer said he had good relations with Nixon, but he sometimes had problems with Haldeman and Erlichman, who feared the cost of new food programs. Anytime they bothered him, however, Mayer went over their heads to the president. "When the president would make brave speeches, Haldeman and Erlichman always saw them as rhetorical ploys--Nixon said it, but he didn't mean it," said Mayer. "Whether Nixon meant what he said or not, he got stuck with me and I was determined to take some action."

As a member of the President's Consumer Advisory Council, Mayer thinks President Ford is "much nicer in some ways than Mr. Nixon, but I find him far less supportive."

Whether dealing with federal or Harvard bureaucrats, Mayer seems to have a flair for getting what he wants done. "He's very forceful and gets other people to do their best for him," said John R. Marquand, rotund and affable senior tutor at Dudley House. "He's not inclined to give in to bureaucratic opposition."

"When he believes in something, said Mayer's wife Betty, a petite, soft-spoken woman, "he's so convincing that he carries other people along with him."

If there is one group that Mayer has carried along with him, it is the members of Dudley House. Many say they are convinced that no other House has a master who is as helpful and friendly as he is.

"The striking feature about Mayer is that he always makes an effort to stop students and initiate a conversation," sophomore Tom DiGiovanni said. "I haven't seen this in any other master."

Esmeralda Santiago, a senior in Dudley, said, "If you ever need a favor, he will do it for you. He makes himself more available than any other master."

With a little hesitation, Nicholas Koch '77 admitted, "He's sort of like a father."

Mayer agreed that he does like Dudley House. "I can spend an almost unlimited amount of time on this place. That part of the job which involves listening and talking to people can take 24 hours a day," he explained.

"I think he really enjoys being master," said Marquand, who has worked with him for six years. "Unlike some people who are reluctant to be master, he wanted the job. One of the reasons for this was that his son, Andre, had been chairman of the House committee."

Betty Mayer said that her husband finds Dudley "invigorating" because he is not often with people the age of undergraduates. Four of Mayer's own children are in their twenties and his youngest son is 15.

Dudley House members including their master, annually scale Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire. According to house legend, Mayer challenges the students to reach the peak before he does and every year he's the first one to the top. Mayer laughed when asked about this story. "I'd despair about the general health of the population if out of all those students, there wasn't somebody who could get there before I do. But," he quickly added, "I did finish well before a number of students."

Although Dudley is the largest Harvard House with all its members non-residents Mayer feels it is very cohesive because of the large number of activities it offers. According to Marquand, Mayer is responsible for many of these activities. In addition to a weekly open house at his master's lodging on 53 Dunster St., Mayer gives many parties at his house for student groups. He has also developed an extensive House course program.

A small House course that Mayer started several years ago has since grown to include 300 students and is now offered as Nat Sci 128, "Nutrition." Until Mayer introduced this course, there were no basic nutrition courses for undergraduates.

"Jean is a really solid bridge between the School of Public Health and the college. A number of us here have seized upon the wedge he made into the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to try to introduce courses there," Public Health School's Gershoff said. "It's given me an opportunity to deal with undergraduates for the first time."

Mayer's style of teaching is appreciated on both sides of the river. Gershoff said, "Jean is a good teacher in everything that the word implies. He knows what he's talking about, has a feel for student needs, and gives interesting lectures."

Sophmore Joanne Saia described his lecture style: "He keeps my interest very well which not too many people do. Maybe it's because I like his accent. He tells a few jokes, but he keeps his lectures sane."

Mayer maintains a lab at the School of Pablic Health. His research has centered on obesity and the regulation of food intake. He is his discovery of how the amount of glucose in the blood affects hunger. But his scientific work has not confined him to his laboratory. Like his father, Mayer believes that scientific research should be transformed into action. "Jean has been particularly good at combining his scientific knowledge and the results of his research with program needs both in this county and abroad," Gershoff said.

Mayer is a prolific writer. In addition to about 650 articles in scientific journals, he has written several books. His latest book, "A Diet For Living" was published last month. "It's the first completely non-technical book I've written and I have no idea whether I've succeeded," he said.

Approximately 30 million people read his nationally syndicated newspaper column. He began the articles four years ago when he realized that he could reach people more easily by writing an educational column than by sittng on endless committees discussing how to educate the public about nutrition.

In the Mayer household, it is Jean who does the family grocery shopping. "It's an essential part of writing my column," he said, adding that he spends a lot of time reading product labels. "One look at a label is enough to convince me that I want no part of some goods," he said.

Does Mayer follow the advice he gives to the public in his newspaper column? According to his wife, he does. "Jean eats a lot of salad and fruit and he loves fish. At home he doesn't have meat at all." When she married Mayer in 1942, Betty didn't have to change her eating or cooking habits. "He wasn't a nutritionist yet," she explained. "But he had fairly simple eating habits even then."

Mayer claims he's "not at all a cook" although he's interested in recipes from a nutritional standpoint. When her husband does step into the kitchen, Betty said, it's ssually to make "a marvelous salad." And two or three times a year he stirs up "something French." His secret ambition, Betty revealed, is to learn to bake bread. "He's tried, but it hasn't been a success," she said.

Mayer doesn't always practice what he preaches. Throughout his career has emphasized the importance of exercise in weight control. Betty claims, however, that he doesn't get enough exercise and, as a result, he puts on weight. "He says that travel and lack of time keep him from exercising," she explained.

Lectures and conferences keep Mayer traveling around the world. "There are some weeks," explained Marquand, "when I'll see him on Monday and Wednesday and won't even know that he was in Rome in the interim."

No matter where he's traveled during the week, however, Mayer is always at home for open house on Friday afternoon. "I never miss those open houses," Mayer said. "It's important for the students to know that they can always find me there."

Everyone seems to have his own theory on how Mayer manages to accomplish so much in a day.

The John Marquand theory: "He's very energetic and he makes decisions quickly. He's very good at supervising work and delegating authority."

The Betty Mayer theory: "He doesn't live by a strict schedule, although he'd probably be better off is he did. Whenever I travel with him I think, 'Now we'll have a chance to talk,' but he immediately settles himself down and goes to sleep."

The Stanley Gershoff theory: "If there's one problem that Jean has it's that he's spread too thin. It's only in the last two years that I've heard him talk of being tired."

The Jean Mayer theory: "I think that the way most people conduct their lives, there are periods when they're involved in a variety of things. For a number of years I just did research and whatever teaching went with it."

As nutritionist, author, and government consultant, Mayer is a world-wide figure. But fame brings its share of problems too.

"Jean's a star," said Gershoff. "And as soon as you become a star, people go for your throat. If you do anything wrong, it gets magnified. To be fair to people like Jean, you have to recognize that he has faults and then ask if his accomplishments are worthwhile. When you look at Jean as a whole person, you come out with a big fat plus."