Funding launches the new Center
for Prevention of Childhood Obesity that will focus on research and
methods to improve and maintain childhood health.
November 17, 2005 :: No. 79
Cal State Fullerton has received $400,000 from the Centers for
Disease Control to develop an interdisciplinary center to promote
obesity prevention and healthy lifestyles in children.
"Our goal will be to work with schools and communities
in developing new strategies to promote children's health and reduce
obesity," said Shari G. McMahan, chair and professor of health
science who has been named to direct the Center for the Prevention
of Childhood Obesity.
"We also want to stimulate and support our faculty's research
on children's health -- especially research that addresses urgent
community needs, such as incidence of diabetes and other obesity-related
problems in the Latino community." said McMahan. "The center will
evaluate and influence policies that affect children's physical
activity and nutrition.
"In order to address the multiple issues that affect childhood
obesity, we are taking a multidisciplinary approach. That means
we have faculty representation from child and adolescent studies,
counseling, nursing, kinesiology, health science, education, human
services ... many disciplines to focus on a problem that has roots
in multiple areas as well," she added.
"The center's activities build upon the current research, evaluation
and intervention work of Cal State Fullerton faculty and community
partners in Orange County," said Roberta Rikli, dean of the CSUF
College of Health and Human Development, where the center is based. "More
specifically, funds are being utilized for a number of different
research/intervention projects involving children, parents, schools,
medical clinics, and city and county agencies.
"We emphasize serving low-income, at-risk children in predominantly
Hispanic communities in Santa Ana, Garden Grove and south Fullerton,
where obesity rates and risks for diabetes are among the highest
in the nation. Collectively, these projects address the obesity
epidemic through a variety of interpersonal, behavioral and ecological
models involving participants whose ages range from preschoolers
through adolescents," added Rikli, noting that the center
was made possible through the support of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden
Grove).
Sanchez discussed the effort on the House floor in the spring
of last year.
Rikli will be in San Francisco Monday to attend a meeting
of the California Governor's Council on Physical Fitness. The meeting
will focus on defining and developing criteria on physical fitness
and activity to encourage Californians to adopt new practices to
enhance their health and fitness.
CSUF faculty members currently are working
closely with Project ALISA -- Active Living in Santa Ana -- to evaluate and enhance
the project's intervention strategies, noted McMahan. Although
Project ALISA activities benefit the entire city, its current efforts
focus on two apartment complexes on Lyon Street in Santa Ana, where
researchers will evaluate their methods of helping children make
healthier choices -- whether it's eating, exercising or learning
about the health hazards of smoking, drugs and alcohol.
"We also are working closely with local schools to plan what we
call school-based interventions -- that is, trying to encourage
good eating habits with children while they are at school and to
promote additional physical activities, " said McMahon.
"By working cooperatively with other organizations already committed
to children's health, we can maximize our efforts," she said, noting
existing collaborative efforts with Children's Hospital of Orange
County, St. Jude Medical Center and UCI.
"One aspect of our project is to develop a referral center for
children who are at risk of, or already identified, as overweight," said
Cynthia S. Greenberg, associate professor of nursing. "This center
will work with children and parents to gain strategies to make
good food choices and increase physical activity."
Partnering with St. Jude Medical Center, members of the nursing
faculty are examining school data in order to develop programs
to help school-based nurses incorporate healthier lifestyle habits
into the lessons they pass along to children and their families.
"Other areas of focus include working with mothers from diverse
ethnic groups," said Jessica N. Gomel, assistant professor of child
and adolescent studies. "Parents, and mothers in particular, make
most of the decisions regarding nutrition options for their preschool
children. We propose to examine the mother's decision-making process
when she makes food choices her child. What mothers feed their
children may shape eating habits during a sensitive period of brain
development, and may have a lifelong impact on appetite regulation
and fatness, as well as psychological consequences for children," said
Gomel.
Earlier this summer, faculty members Leonard D. Wiersma, Clay
P. Sherman and Shawn H. Dolan collaborated with Santa Ana-based
Latino Health Access to conduct a 12-week physical activity and
nutrition program for overweight youth. Meeting on weekends, youth
participated in active recreation, nutrition education and other
activities that created a connection to Cal State Fullerton. A
related intervention study focused on health-related quality of
life, physical fitness, nutrition assessment and psychosocial variables
related to participation in physical activity.
Wiersma and Sherman have extended the program to Richman Park
in Fullerton, where they will partner with St. Jude Medical Center
to provide after-school physical activity for children referred
by the medical center's pediatric nurses. Both projects are expected
to produce research data on the role of physical activity in obesity
prevention, and provide several undergraduate and graduate students
with research opportunities and hands-on experience working with
children, said Wiersma.
"Faculty members at the Center for the Prevention of Childhood
Obesity have developed good partnerships with community healthcare
agencies, schools and hospitals in Orange County," said Jie W.
Weiss, assistant professor in kinesiology and health science. "The
goal has been to implement an intervention program among high-risk
Latino children and to evaluate the effectiveness of existing programs."
Media Contacts: |
Shari McMahan at 657-278-7000 or smcmahan@fullerton.edu
Valerie Orleans, Public
Affairs, at 657-278-4540 or vorleans@fullerton.edu |
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