PORTLAND, ORE. — Bob and Charlee Moore, founders of Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods, have given a $5 million gift to Oregon State University to launch a new academic center focused on whole grain foods nutrition. The donation will establish the Moore Family Center for Whole Grain Foods, Nutrition and Preventive Health in O.S.U.’s College of Health and Human Sciences, and it will provide endowments for the center’s director and an additional professor, along with two programmatic funds to support the center’s research and outreach, including a fund focused on childhood obesity. The gift also will create an endowed fellowship fund for graduate students who want to study, research and advance the health and nutritional benefits of whole grain foods. A final portion of the gift will allow the university to renovate the food research laboratory in Milam Hall where faculty and students will study whole grain foods and ways to promote healthy eating behavior. “Making healthy whole grain food is what I believe in and what I have focused on for 30-plus years,” said Mr. Moore, chief executive officer of Bob’s Red Mill. “Charlee and I are particularly concerned about the pressure on young people to eat junk: pop, candy, empty calories. Far too many kids are overweight — and so are their parents. It’s a very serious problem for our nation and the world. This center at O.S.U. will help provide solutions.”