RIPPE, James M. 1947-

PERSONAL: Born June 26, 1947; married Stephanie Hart (a television news anchor); children: Hart, Jaelin, Devon, Jamie. Education: Harvard College, B.A., 1969; Harvard Medical School, M.D., 1979. Hobbies and other interests: Karate, wind surfing, skiing, tennis.

ADDRESSES: Office—Rippe Lifestyle Institute, 21 North Quinsigamond Ave., Shrewsbury, MA 01545. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 111 River St., 5th Fl., Hoboken, NJ 07030.

CAREER: Physician, educator, and writer. Harvard University Medical School, Cambridge, MA, clinical fellow in medicine, 1979–81; University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, instructor of medicine and fellow in cardiovascular medicine, 1981–83, assistant professor, 1983–88, associate professor of medicine and director of exercise and nutrition laboratory, 1988–93; Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, associate professor of medicine (cardiology), 1994–; University of Central Florida, adjunct faculty, 2003–; University of South Florida College of Medicine, affiliate associate professor of medicine, 2003–. University of Massachusetts Medi-cal Center, medical director of cardiac rehabilitation, 1983–85; TBG Development, medical director, 1998–2002; Rippe Lifestyle Institute (medical research and consulting firm), founder and director, 1998–; Television Food Network, medical editor, 1993–97. Chairman of advisory board, "Health Growing Up" program (health and fitness curriculum for schoolchildren); co-chair, Pharmanex medical advisory board, 1997–2004; member of advisory board, WebMD.com, 1999–. Editor, Journal of Intensive Care Medicine; founding editor, Nutrition in Clinical Care.

MEMBER: American Medical Association, American Heart Association, American College of Sports Medicine, Society of Critical Care Medicine, Society of General Internal Medicine, American Association of Cardiovascular & Pulmonary Rehabilitation, North American Association for the Study of Obesity.

AWARDS, HONORS: American Health Book Award, 1985, for Fitness Walking, 1987, for Fitness Walking for Women; International Dance Exercise Association, Fitness Educator of the Year award, 1989, Lifetime Achievement Award, 2000; named among ten national Healthy American Fitness Leaders by United States Jaycees/President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports; named among 100 Most Influential People in Central Florida, 2000, for work at Rippe Health Assessment at Celebration Health; Florida Council of 100 appointment, 2001.

WRITINGS:

(With Joseph S. Alpert) Manual of Cardiovascular Diagnosis and Therapy, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1980.

(Editor, with Marie Csete) Manual of Intensive Care Medicine, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1983.

(Editor, with others) Intensive Care Medicine, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1985.

(With Robert Sweetgall and Frank Katch) Fitness Walking, illustrations by Frederick Bush, Perigee Books (New York, NY), 1985.

(With William Southmayd) The Sports Performance Factors, Putnam Publishing Group (New York, NY), 1986.

(With Anne Kashiwa) Fitness Walking for Women, Putnam Publishing Group (New York, NY), 1987.

(With Ann Ward) Starting Your Personal Fitness Program, Lippincott (Philadelphia, PA), 1988.

(With Ann Ward) Walking for Health and Fitness, Lippincott (Philadelphia, PA), 1988.

(With Ann Ward) Dr. James M. Rippe's Complete Book of Fitness Walking, Prentice Hall Press (New York, NY), 1989.

Dr. James M. Rippe's Fit for Success: Proven Strategies for Executive Health, Prentice Hall (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Karla Dougherty and Ann Ward) The Rockport Walking Program, Prentice Hall Press (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Patricia Amend) The Exercise Exchange Program, recipes by Judy Fredal Pang, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1992.

(Editor, with others) Procedures and Techniques in Intensive Care Medicine, Little, Brown (Boston, MA) 1995.

Fit over Forty: A Revolutionary Plan to Achieve Lifelong Physical and Spiritual Health and Well-Being, W. Morrow (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor, with Richard S. Irwin and Frank B. Cerra) Irwin and Rippe's Intensive Care Medicine, Lippincott-Raven (Philadelphia, PA), 1999.

(Editor) Lifestyle Medicine, Blackwell Science (Malden, MA), 1999.

The Healthy Heart for Dummies, IDG Books World-wide (Foster City, CA), 2000.

(With Amy G. Myrdal, Angela Harley Kirkpatrick, and Mary Abbott Waite) The Healthy Heart Cookbook for Dummies, IDG Books Worldwide (Foster City, CA), 2000.

(With Sean McCarthy and Mary Abbott White) The Joint Health Prescription: Eight Weeks to Stronger, Healthier, Younger Joints, Rodale (Emmaus, PA), 2001.

(Editor, with Joanna T. Dwyer) Lifestyle Nutrition, Blackwell Science (Malden, MA), 2001.

Heart Disease for Dummies, John Wiley & Sons (Hoboken, NJ), 2004.

(With Weight Watchers) Weight Loss That Lasts: Break through the Ten Big Diet Myths, John Wiley & Sons (Hoboken, NJ), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Business Digest, Lancet, Journal of Medical Education, American Journal of Medicine, and New York Times Magazine. Member of editorial board for periodicals, including Time magazine cardiovascular health supplements, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Tufts University Diet & Nutrition Letter, ACSM's Health and Fitness Journal, Journal of Medical Education, Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery, American Heart Journal, and Physician and Sports Medicine.

SIDELIGHTS: Cardiologist and health and fitness expert James M. Rippe is a prolific author of medical texts for experts as well as fitness and health books for a general audience. He has authored more than 200 journal articles on medical and fitness topics and has presented more than 120 papers at national medical and scientific meetings. He has used his expertise to create corporate fitness programs for a number of business clients. Rippe is a frequent on-air commentator who has appeared on The Golf Channel, Television Food Network, New England Cable News, Today, the CBS Early Show, and Good Morning America. He holds a black belt in karate and partakes of his own advice in a regular walking, jogging, and weight-training program, noted a biographer on the Rippe Health Web site.

A staunch advocate of walking as a means of improving health and fitness, Rippe suggests that even a simple fifteen-minute walk every day will result in increased strength and cardiovascular endurance. Walking regularly also reduces hypertension, lowers cholesterol, helps reduce anxiety, and slows the process of osteoporosis. "You don't have to turn your life upside down to do things that have a profound impact on how happy, productive, and healthy you are," Rippe commented in a profile for the Saturday Evening Post. Exercise, he noted, "can fit into your daily routine as general maintenance for your body." The most important thing, he said in the Saturday Evening Post profile, is to "find an activity you like and make it a part of your life. Every day. It isn't magic and it isn't complicated. But it works."

Dr. James M. Rippe's Fit for Success: Proven Strategies for Executive Health explores issues of fitness and health as they relate to business executives and related professionals. In a study of almost 1,140 top executives in companies throughout the country, Rippe discovered that sixty-four percent of executives surveyed participate in a regular aerobic exercise program, compared to twenty percent of the general population, reported a reviewer in Today's Living. Further, almost ninety percent of the survey respondents carefully watch their diets. Good health and exercise contributed substantially to the executives' higher energy levels and creative energy. Rippe also offers advice for setting up corporate exercise programs, designing a diet to control weight and cholesterol, and instigating a personal fitness program.

In a similar vein, Fit over Forty: A Revolutionary Plan to Achieve Lifelong Physical and Spiritual Health and Well-Being addresses the unique diet and exercise needs of the middle-aged population over forty years of age. An extreme exercise or diet program is not necessary, Rippe says; small changes of habits and improvements in eating and exercise will accumulate to have greater effects over the long run. He offers suggestions for beneficial practices such as weight management, stress reduction, and getting proper nutrition. Rippe has "designed an easy-to-follow program for middle-aged and older people that emphasizes what he and other health experts now know fitness is all about—not marathon-running ability but the capacity to meet daily challenges, such as climbing a large flight of stairs or picking up heavy groceries," commented a reviewer in Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter.

Fitness Walking for Women provides expert guidance for women who want to start and maintain a regular aerobic walking program. Rippe stresses the particular fitness needs of women and offers details on how to use a walking program to reduce and maintain weight, decrease stress, improve aerobic conditioning, and tone muscles. A reviewer writing in HeartCare called it "an award-winning handbook."

Lifestyle Nutrition contains an "easy-to-read primer" on nutritional research and developments that have occurred since 1999, stated reviewer Constance J. Geiger in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. Rippe covers topics such as the new U.S. dietary guidelines, nutrition for active adolescents, adult nutrition, nutritional and behavioral techniques for controlling obesity and cardiovascular disease, and the benefits conveyed by a variety of healthy lifestyle practices. Rippe and coeditor Joanna T. Dwyer "have crafted an accessible, accurate portrayal of some of the most salient nutrition topics and issues today," Geiger remarked.

Lifestyle Medicine, edited by Rippe, provides in-depth information on a variety of issues in the relatively new field of lifestyle medicine, a sub-specialty that emphasizes changes in lifestyle, behaviors, and habits in order to lower risk factors for chronic disease or to assist in the treatment of an existing disease. The "emphasis of the book is on exercise as it relates to preventive medicine and care of common conditions," noted Ann Jacob in the Journal of Family Practice. Rippe provides detailed clinical information on organ systems and function, clinical evaluation of patients, the pathophysiology of a number of common conditions, and the role of exercise in treating or preventing diseases. "The editors performed a superb job of showcasing nutrition and physical activity as essential components of health care," Geiger remarked in another Journal of the American Dietetic Association review.

Edited by Rippe, Intensive Care Medicine is a compilation of technical and medical information for medical students, physicians, and other medical professionals whose practice involves them with intensive care medicine. Spanning more than 2,000 pages, with contributions from more than 200 experts, the book covers practical medical procedures and provides specialized guidance on management of poisoning, treating shock and trauma, caring for transplant patients, and administering nutritional support. Chapters also cover organizational management, medical ethics, and medical audits. This "new edition is a welcome and valuable guide to the practical aspects of intensive care" and associated areas of medicine, commented Iain Campbell in Lancet.

In Weight Loss That Lasts: Break through the Ten Big Diet Myths, written in collaboration with prominent weight-loss company Weight Watchers, Rippe explores the ten most common myths about dieting, weight loss, and weight maintenance. He covers a number of common misconceptions that can sabotage any weight-loss program's chances of success. Rippe discusses the grains of truth, research findings, and effects that led to the perpetuation of myths such as "you can't lose weight and keep it off," "you can lose weight with exercise alone," and "you can control your metabolism with what, how, and when you eat." A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that Rippe's "straightforward, kindly volume provides a logical discussion of weight loss and the steps required to achieve and sustain it."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

AAFA's American Fitness, May-June, 1988, "The Man Who Helped Launch Walking as a Popular Sport Tells What All the Fuss Is About" (interview), p. 47.

Booklist, May 15, 1996, Sue-Ellen Beauregard, review of Fit over Forty: A Revolutionary Plan to Achieve Lifelong Physical and Spiritual Health and Well-Being, p. 1556.

Chest, August, 1990, Wayne L. Anderson, review of Manual of Intensive Care Medicine, p. 27; May, 1993, review of Intensive Care Medicine, p. 23.

HeartCare, June, 1990, review of Fitness Walking for Women, p. 70.

Journal of Family Practice, March, 2001, Anne Jacob, review of Lifestyle Medicine, p. 269.

Journal of the American Dietetic Association, December, 2000, review of Lifestyle Medicine, p. 1562; July, 2002, Constance J. Geiger, review of Lifestyle Nutrition, p. 1022.

Lancet, March 28, 1992, Iain Campbell, review of Intensive Care Medicine, p. 797.

Library Journal, Susan Hagloch, review of Weight Loss That Lasts: Break through the Ten Big Diet Myths, p. 144.

Publishers Weekly, January 17, 2005, review of Weight Loss That Lasts, p. 49.

Saturday Evening Post, May-June, 1992, Carol Krucoff, "Taking Exercise in Stride," p. 14.

Today's Living, October, 1989, review of Dr. James M. Rippe's Fit for Success: Proven Strategies for Executive Health, p. 31.

Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter, May, 1997, review of Fit over Forty, p. 8.

ONLINE

Rippe Health Web site, http://www.rippehealth.com (May 21, 2005).