Professor to serve as guest researcher at CDC

James Morrow, Regents Professor of kinesiology, health promotion and recreation, is serving for nine months as a guest researcher studying obesity in youth for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

During his time at the CDC, Morrow will participate in projects designed to promote further understanding of physical activity and physical fitness among children and adolescents in the United States. His research will focus on the impact of physical inactivity on the health of children and adolescents. He says this is particularly important given recent increases in the numbers of obesity and Type 2 diabetes cases in children and adolescents.

"The obesity problem in our youth and subsequent diseases is a call to action for the future health of our citizens," Morrow says.

He will also participate in designing and planning efforts to launch a national youth fitness survey. He says the project, still in discussion stages, will help determine cardiovascular and musculoskeletal fitness levels in a sample of U.S. children and adolescents.

Morrow and his colleagues at the UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth and the Cooper Institute recently completed related research called Project PATH (Participation and Training in Health) in the Dallas area. Project PATH was an intervention program addressing physical activity and weight control in ninth-grade minority students.

Project PATH used Salud Para su Corazón — a Latino Community Cardiovascular Resources program — as a guide to develop the project. Salud Para su Corazón was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and was developed by scientists at the Health Science Center. A report about Project PATH will be released in the next few months.

BY CATHY CASHIO ccashio@unt.edu

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• Homecoming is Oct. 16-18
• Princeton Review includes UNT in The Best Western Colleges guidebook
• UNT faculty, staff encouraged to contribute nominations for annual alumni awards
• The Club at Gateway Center opens for fall season; new chef brings new flavor
• SECC campaign puts focus on caring
• NAFTA pumps dollars into Texas economy, but at border cities' expense
• Faculty Senate hears reports from Pohl, new VP for research and technology transfer

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