Gerard Musante

Gerard Musante

Dr. Gerard John Musante (born 1943) is an American psychologist born in New York City. He was the first to combine psychology, behavioral modification and a restricted calorie diet to obtain verifiable and documented long-term weight loss results. He is the author of the book The Structure House Weight Loss Plan: Achieve Your Ideal Weight Through a New Relationship with Food, printed by Simon and Schuster.

In 1977, Musante founded the weight loss institute Structure House Inc. as an on-site residential weight loss center in Durham, NC. Over the past 30 years, Structure House has helped 30,000 people lose a combined weight of more than 636,000 pounds In 2007, Structure House was purchased by the CRC Health Group, the largest provider of specialized behavioral health care services in the United States;. Musante remains the director of the program.

In a radio interview on the subject, Musante explained how his breakthrough came during a Clinical Psychology internship at Duke University when he discovered that patients who only followed a restricted intake of calories (diet) didn’t always have success. He experimented by pairing a diet with a psychological approach, and behavior modification during clinical sessions. During these sessions, he discovered that a patient’s relationship with food—their behavior in actually dealing with food could be altered.

Structure House has been featured on The Today Show, The New York Times, Associated Press, 60 Minutes, Glamour Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox & Friends, and USA TODAY. Musante has also contributed to and helped to publish over 30 papers and given numerous talks on the subject. In 2006, he appeared as an expert in front of a 2006 congressional panel holding hearings on a bill designed to combat obesity in America.

Musante is a Consulting Professor on the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Duke University Medical Center Durham, North Carolina as well as a Diplomate, American Board of Professional Psychology in Clinical Psychology and a Fellow at the Academy of Clinical Psychology and Behavior Therapy and Research Society.