A recent spate of news articles reminds us once again that America’s children are gaining too much weight. The American Obesity Association states that approximately 15.5 percent of adolescents (ages 12-19) and 15.3 percent of children (ages 6-11) are obese.  Luckily, most of the causes of child and adolescent obesity can be modified.  Dr. Mary Murimi, Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Dietetics at Louisiana Tech University, is working on a research project that will provide a model that could be adopted by other states and researchers in an effort to combat childhood obesity in school-aged children.  She has been funded $100,000 from the United States Department of Agriculture to work on this project that assesses the effect of the school environment and food system on students’ nutrition knowledge, food choices, physical activity, and weight status.

With the help of the Louisiana Tech Rural Development Center and Co-Project Directors Elizabeth Higgins and Jan Colvin, Dr. Murimi is using different methods to collect data from 7^th graders from 32 randomly selected Louisiana schools.  The data that she collects will assess 1,280 students on their nutrition knowledge, eating habits, and body weight.  Along with students, she is also including a network of school administrators, classroom teachers, foodservice staff, and school parent organizations.  Their input will contribute to the implementation process as well as the formative and summative project evaluations.  She will distribute a web-based questionnaire to all school administrators assessing the school environment and food system policies in relation to physical education, integration of nutrition education in the classroom and cafeteria, and competitive foods.  According to Dr. Murimi, “Collaborative relationships with stakeholders formed during the research process will be used to develop and maintain a network that will facilitate sharing of information between the researchers and the stakeholders with the overall purpose of improving the overall environment and food system in Louisiana schools.” 

Dr. Murimi is an accomplished researcher in this field. During the past year while she has been working on the above project, she had an article published in the Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences titled “Dietary Habits and Body Size Perception of Elementary School Children.”  This study assesses the attitudes and concerns of children in grades 1 through 5 regarding their perceived body composition, and it is a precursor to the project that she is working on right now. Through much hard work and dedication, Dr. Murimi and her co-directors plan to find ways to help reduce obesity, improve diet quality, and increase health outcomes among school children.

For more information, you may visit the Louisiana Tech University Rural Development website at http://www.latech.edu/tech/rural/current%20projects/main.html.  If you would like to read about a presentation Dr. Murimi made to the American Dietetics Association, please visit http://www.latech.edu/techtalk/archives/11_11_04/current/diabetes.php.