URMC / Clinical & Translational Science Institute / Stories / March 2017 / Join the Healthy Weight Movement

Join the Healthy Weight Movement

Woman standing on scale with tape measurer Researchers and community agencies interested in issues surrounding body weight, such as obesity and eating disorders, are invited to join an informal event as part of the Healthy Weight Initiative. The event, to be held Saturday, March 25, aims to connect researchers and community stakeholders from diverse disciplines and backgrounds to form new teams and generate fresh research or program ideas.

The Healthy Weight Initiative strives to increase the proportion of the Rochester community with healthy weight by generating more funding for body weight development projects. The Building Bridges for Healthy Weight Initiatives “unconference” is a first step toward nurturing diverse, transdisciplinary research teams and fostering holistic, systems approaches to body weight research. Any approach -from the most basic to the most applied or the most distant to the most proximal is welcome, as long as it will promote healthy weight in the end.

During the morning portion of the event, which starts at 8:30 am, attendees will engage in one-on-one speed dating sessions (8 minutes each). Attendees will be asked to describe their ideal research project or program – ignoring limitations of funding, resources, or time. Each speed dating pair will then have to identify commonalities that could be further explored in a collaborative project.

In the afternoon, moderators will facilitate break-out discussions based on major common themes that emerged from the speed dating sessions as well as one pre-determined theme to assess interest in applying for a Healthy Weight/Obesity Research Center if a funding opportunity arises. Attendees will have the opportunity to express their opinions on the necessity, feasibility, and focus of such a center.

Aside from fostering identification of collaborators, this unconference will allow attendees to get in on the ground floor of a new healthy weight research movement. Guided by the findings of the unconference, future activities will consolidate the potential collaborations to develop proposals for funding. The planning group, headed by Diana Fernandez, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., associate professor of Public Health Sciences, hopes the group that convenes for this event will remain in close contact to push this movement forward.

Unconference: Building Bridges for Healthy Weight Initiatives
Saturday, March 25, 8:30 am – 3:45 pm
Saunders Research Building Atrium
265 Crittenden Blvd,
Rochester, NY 14642

The event is co-sponsored by the CTSI, the Center for Community Health and the Department of Public Health Sciences.

Please register for the event by Wednesday, March 22 at 4:30 pm. It is free to attend.

Michael Hazard | 3/2/2017