UT School of Public Health Hosts
Texas Obesity Awareness Week Events
HOUSTON – (Sept. 8, 2008) – Texas State Comptroller Susan Combs, a leader in the fight against the obesity epidemic in Texas, will be the keynote lecturer Thursday, Sept. 11, in Austin at the Texas Obesity Awareness Week Lectures and Presentations hosted by the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Advancement of Healthy Living, part of The University of Texas School of Public Health Austin Regional Campus.
Larry Kaiser, M.D., president of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, which includes the UT School of Public Health, will lead a panel discussion on battling childhood obesity in Texas following the lecture.
State Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, who co-authored HB 2313 establishing Texas Obesity Awareness Week (Sept. 8-11), will be at the Thursday event to accept an award from the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Advancement of Healthy Living. Also honored are the bill’s co-author State Rep. Susan King, R-Abilene and sponsor State Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville.
State Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, will be honored for leadership to the Center’s CATCH (Coordinated Approach To Child Health) school-based program, which disseminates education and skills concerning nutrition and physical activity to school-age children and their parents.
The University of Texas System Interim Chancellor Kenneth I. Shine will attend the event to receive the first “Friend of the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Advancement of Healthy Living Award” for his role in the development of the UT School of Public Health’s Austin Regional Campus and the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Advancement of Healthy Living.
Combs will speak on “Efforts to Combat Childhood Obesity in Texas” at 1 p.m. Thursday at the Joe C. Thompson Conference Center, 2405 Robert Dedman Drive.
Members of the panel discussion include Kaiser; Combs; Cheryl Perry, Ph.D., professor and regional dean of the UT School of Public Health Austin Regional Campus; Deanna Hoelscher, Ph.D., professor and director of the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Advancement of Healthy Living; Steven Kelder, Ph.D., professor and co-director of the Center; and Harold W. (Bill) Kohl, III, professor in the Division of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health.
As part of the week’s activities, parents and grandparents will be invited to eat a healthy “Go” lunch at Travis County schools; classroom teachers will teach CATCH lessons during the week; and physical education teachers will introduce CATCH “Eat Smart” Games.
In the second lecture of the Texas Obesity Awareness Week program, K. Srinath Reddy, M.D., will speak at 9 a.m. Monday, Sept. 15, on “Outsourcing An Epidemic: Obesity and Tobacco Use Prevention in the Developing World,” at the Joe C. Thompson Conference Center.
Reddy is president of the Public Health Foundation of India and professor and head of the Department of Cardiology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. His research, which has been funded by the World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health, includes identifying the nature and extent of risk factors contributing to the rapid rise of heart disease in India and other developing countries.
The lectures are free and open to the public. For more information, call 512-482-6178.