Grant Schofield is Professor of Public Health at AUT, and director of the University’s Human Potential Centre.

Grant’s career has focused on preventing the diseases of modern times, and seeing what it takes to help people live a long, healthy and happy life.

He lives and breathes the motto “be the best you can be”, and sees this as a game-changer for the health system – capable of transforming the current deficit (sickness) model, to one in which we aspire to be well. He is redefining public health as the science of human potential; the study of what it takes to have a great life.

Grant is well known for thinking outside the box and challenging convention wisdom in nutrition and weight loss, as well as physical activity and exercise.

He is best known for his work in three areas: abandoning rules and embracing risky play in his free range kids work; leading public discussion in flipping the food pyramid, by challenging the low fat nutrition dogma with low carb high fat diets; and developing national accounts of well-being through his Sovereign Well-being Index research.

His fluency across several scientific disciplines – from human physiology, to psychology, to pack performance – allows a new lens to be cast over old problems.

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