Research project fights obesity one neighborhood at a time

By RANDY GAMMAGE, onCAMPUS staff

Backed by a $1.1 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), two Ohio State researchers are striving to improve the fitness of an entire University-area neighborhood.

Project ComFit is a three-year project designed to increase long-term physical activity by altering the physical and social environments of the area. To reach that goal, a neighborhood-based program will be created focused on increasing access to physical activity opportunities such as after-school programs, church-based programs and walking clubs; improving the quality of existing programs; disseminating information about physical activity; and building neighborhood support for a physically active lifestyle.

The project will provide a model for other neighborhoods to follow, said Richard Suminski, assistant professor of physical activity and educational services in the College of Education.

"The key to this project is being able to document every thing that we do throughout the three-year project so that other communities can take this data and use it as a model to promote physical activity in their neighborhoods," Suminski said.

His research partner and co-principal investigator for the grant is Richard Petosa, associate professor of physical activity and educational services and assistant professor of allied medical professions.

Their proposal was one of 25 funded nationally through the CDC Extramural Prevention Research Program (see info box below), out of 350 proposals received dealing with health-related issues.

The CDC is responding to a sharp increase in obesity among Americans. Obesity rose 61 percent between 1991 and 2000, and is now considered by the Surgeon General to be a national epidemic, Petosa said. The American Heart Association is making the case that physical activity is the most important behavioral risk factor for heart disease.

"It is one of the most important things you can do to improve your health -- but it has to become an integral part of your lifestyle for years and years to be effective," Petosa said.

The perception, he said, is that you need to be involved in rigorous physical activity like aerobics or weight training to be fit. The reality is that moderate, daily physical activity like bike riding, walking, yard work or household chores can improve your health.

"Only 30 percent of Americans buy into an exercise approach to physical activity," Petosa said. "We will be making efforts to get people to integrate lifestyle activities into their daily routine."

The push to get a neighborhood more active could involve improving safety so more children walk or ride bikes to school, or more runners jog on the high school track, Suminski said. It could mean changing school policies so students take physical education classes more often. It may result in more churches renting space to aerobics instructors, or in a citizen's group campaigning city officials to raise funds for footpaths.

"We're going to build on what's there," Suminski said. "Whoever can promote physical fitness will be involved."

Project ComFit eventually will involve faculty and graduate and undergraduate students from the College of Education's sport and exercise sciences program, the Fisher College of Business, and the Center for Mapping.

While the primary objective of the project is to assess the impact of a neighborhood-based program on increasing physical activity, there are a number of secondary goals, including:

• Assess rates of physical activity and identify neighborhood resources related to physical activity, such as parks, indoor recreation centers and sidewalks.

• Recruit community members from schools, churches, businesses and civic organizations to serve on an advisory group to counsel the project about the needs and desires of the community.

• Develop, implement and operate a neighborhood-based physical activity program that is tailored to the needs of the residents, builds upon existing resources, and is sustainable over time.

While an entirely separate program, Petosa said ComFit is a good follow up to Commit To Be Fit, a yearlong initiative started by Mayor Michael Coleman and WBNS-TV to get central Ohioans to make the necessary lifestyle changes to live a healthier, happier life (www.10tv.com/health/commit/).

When Project ComFit ends in three years, the neighborhood will have a network of organizations that will promote fitness. A development advisory board comprised of residents will lead the network and continue the work begun by the grant.

Two engineering faculty receive CAREER awards

The National Science Foundation has awarded Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) awards to two Ohio State Engineering faculty members. The 2003 CAREER awards, which recognize young researchers' dual commitment to scholarship and education, will total $900,000 in CAREER funding for the researchers over the next five years.

James W. Davis, assistant professor of computer and information science, will receive $500,000 to investigate computer vision methods for video surveillance. Davis is developing an advanced video surveillance system that will use computers equipped with video cameras to "see" our world, detect the presence of people, and identify their activities (and ultimately their intent).

He will use mathematical methods to find the most salient visual features of different activities to enable automatic computer recognition for surveillance. Of special interest will be examining how people perform this seemingly effortless visual recognition task to motivate the design of the system. The outcome of this research will be particularly relevant to the current national interest in improving surveillance and monitoring technologies for Homeland Security.

Philip Schniter, assistant professor of electrical engineering, will receive $400,000 to investigate new algorithms and receiver structures for wireless communication devices.

Today's communication technology is capable of supporting high data rates when the transmitting and receiving nodes are at fixed locations, or low data rates (for example, voice) when the nodes are mobile. Through his research, Schniter hopes to simultaneously achieve high data rates and high levels of mobility with inexpensive consumer devices. His work may one day pave the way for a new revolution in broadband mobile wireless.

As NSF announces CAREER awards throughout the year, announcements of other Ohio State faculty winners may follow.

Daughters invited to campus April 24

By SUSAN WITTSTOCK, onCAMPUS staff

Ohio State has opted to keep the focus on girls when it hosts the ninth annual Take a Daughter to Work Day (TDWD) on April 24. The Ms. Foundation, which began the national event in 1993, announced this year that the day would be changed to "Take Our Daughters & Sons To Work."

"I think what the Ms. Foundation has decided to do is address a different issue. Their focus is on gender equity in the workplace and having boys and girls have conversations about that," said Margie Bogenschutz, coordinator of TDWD at Ohio State.

"At Ohio State, we are continuing to sponsor Take a Daughter to Work Day because we believe our day is about more than just career exploration. The event was started here to empower and challenge girls and enable them to be mentored by strong female role-models," Bogenschutz said. "As such, we've always seen it as a day to build girls' self-confidence and, hopefully, start them down the path to a workplace where they can be part of a community of equals."

Participants are given the chance to attend two 90-minute workshops that offer hands-on activities in a wide variety of fields.

"I think what makes us unique is we really have the opportunity to be a lot more educational because we have so much expertise available in one place. It's one thing for a business to have people with expertise in their particular area. But at a university -- we have genetics, marketing, writing, the arts, health care -- you can find all of that in one setting," Bogenschutz said.

Ohio State expects to have approximately 400 girls ages nine to 17 participating in about 40 different workshops. Registration this year is only online, at http://hr.osu.edu/daughter, and will begin at 8 a.m. on April 9.

"We normally send out a booklet listing the workshops, and include a form that participants can fax us," Bogenschutz said. "Since we had only a very small response via fax last year and printing the booklet is costly, we've chosen to direct everyone to our Web page."

Before deciding to keep the day as a girls event, the TDWD committee consulted with the two founding organizations of the OSU event -- the Association of Faculty and Professional Women (AFPW) and University Career Services Committee (UCSC).

"AFPW and UCSC were strongly in favor of keeping it as a day for daughters," Bogenschutz said.

The committee also sent a survey to girls, parents and presenters from last year's event.

"Most people who wanted to include boys had a son and wanted to bring him along," Bogenschutz said. "But those who wanted to keep it for girls, tended to provide a deeper rationale for it, suggesting that equality in the workplace has not yet been achieved and that the purpose of the day would be altered by including boys."

Because a clear consensus among constituencies was not reached, Bogenschutz said the committee chose to focus on the survey responses of the children.

"When looking at just the responses from the girls, we saw that nearly 70 percent expressed a preference to keep the event just for girls," she said. "We decided to do what they wanted."

The day is coordinated each year by volunteers from across the University, including: the UCSC, the AFPW, the Office of Human Resources, the committee on Women in Technology and The Women's Place.

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