William Stewart Agras

Who is William Stewart Agras?

William Stewart Agras is an American psychiatrist and psychotherapist of British origin, research psychiatrist and Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Stanford University. He normally goes by Stewart Agras.

His primary research interest is in the application of basic psychology to investigation of behavior change in medical and psychiatric problems such as treatment compliance, essential hypertension and other cardiovascular risk factors, and anxiety disorders. In 1974 he began one of the first programs in Behavioral Medicine in the United States, a program that continues today at Stanford University. Beginning in 1985 the majority of his work has been in the area of eating disorders, with studies ranging from epidemiology, basic psychological mechanisms, and treatment. The principal theme of his research has been the understanding of human feeding and its disorders, namely: obesity, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder.