Apresentação Pessoal
At FCNAUP, he was
strongly inspired by
Emílio Peres, humanist,
Professor and Mentor. He started the Academic Career as Assistant of Dr. Emilio Peres in Human Nutrition.
In the 90s, he traveled for 4 consecutive years, between July and August, to Maranhão, Brazil, with André Moreira (formerly a medical student, and today Professor at FMUP and FCNAUP, co-author and Integrated Researcher at ISPUP), with the guidance of Emílio Peres, where they did voluntary community work in the area of
maternal and
child nutrition.
In 1994, he completed the academic examination “Provas de Aptidão Pedagógica e Capacidade Científica em Alimentação e Nutrição Humana”, which was important to strengthen
with Dr. Emílio Peres, the study of active learning in Human Nutrition, and to further develop emerging learning methods, such as the blended-learning, which were
distinguished in 2004 by the University of Porto. Furthermore, he had the opportunity to benefit from the humanist and scientific guidance of Prof.
Maria Fernanda Navarro (National School of Public Health) in maternal-child health which is one of his favourite areas of
intervention. He also had the privilege to collaborate with Prof.
Isabel do Carmo in the Portuguese Platform Against Obesity from the Portuguese Health General Diretorate, and also in
publications, and in teaching
Human Nutrition at the Master of Metabolic Diseases and Eating Behavior, from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon (also with the colaboration of Prof.
Daniel Sampaio, former PhD Supervisor), and supervising master and
PhD students.
He received his PhD in 2001, in Human Nutrition (
with strong support from his Doctoral Supervisors Professors Maria Daniel Vaz de Almeida and Daniel Sampaio), focusing on
eating behavior and weight control, and his preferred areas of research and publications have been the relationship between
dietary intake and
obesity-asthma, before and
after birth, and the control of
hydric and
sodium-
potassium balance (in collaboration with
WHO) in the
life cycle. The paper he considers as one of his favorites is “
Moreira P, Padez C, Mourão-Carvalhal I, Rosado V. Maternal weight gain during pregnancy and overweight in Portuguese children. Int J Obes 2007; 31 (4): 608 -14” which is his 3rd most cited publication. At the time of that study, there were no other studies showing the association between higher maternal weight gain during pregnancy and overweight in infancy/childhood (according to the study, more than 16 kg gestational weight gain was detrimental). Following the recognition of gestational weight gain as an important predictor of obesity and disease later on in the child, the Institute of Medicine revised its guidelines (two years later, in 2009), in relation to weight gain during pregnancy, defining the upper limit of 16 kg for women with normal BMI in the preconception.
More recently, sometimes with
Helpo Association (a Non-Profit Organisation for Development), he continued to collaborate with several projects in the areas of Maternal-child nutrition and Global nutrition (including the prevention of NCDs and HIV maternal-child transmission in pregnant HIV+), in low and middle-income countries, such as Mozambique (Maputo and Nampula) and São Tomé e Principe, and in cities in Eastern
Europe and Central Asia - Kyrgyzstan (
Moldova, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in collaboration with WHO Europe); he also promoted the collaboration for the academic qualification of students and nutritionists from the University of Lurio, Nampula, Mozambique, and the University of La Cantuta, Peru.
He is Full Professor of Human Nutrition at FCNAUP, Integrated Researcher at Instituto de Saúde Pública da Universidade do Porto (ISPUP), and collaborator at Centro de Atividade Física e Saúde e Lazer (CIAFEL). He is a member of the Editorial Board of Nutrients.
He was President of the General Assembly of the
Portuguese Association of Nutritionists in the mandates (2010-2016) that promoted the creation of the "
Ordem of Nutritionists" to regulate the profession of Nutritionist, and founding member of the
Portuguese Society of Nutrition and Food Sciences. In April 22 he was awarded the Medal of Merit from Ordem dos Nutricionistas.
He was Director of FCNAUP (2014-2018), during a period in which the entire academic community was deeply involved to have a Faculty with its own facilities, and thanks to the efforts of current and previous generations, FCNAUP managed to have funding and finnancial approval in 2016, to execute the construction of its own building which was finnaly occupied in 2020, after a waiting period of more than 40 years. He is currently Director of the Master's Course in Pediatric Nutrition, and President of the Pedagogical Council.