Letter from the Director

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear STRIDE family,

Having just spent a lovely weekend at the beach, I am once again reminded of how fortunate we are to live in one of the most outdoor activity-friendly cities in the nation. With plenty of sunny days and more hikes, bikes and waves than I can count, this region offers our residents and visitors many opportunities to be physically active. Burning calories, however, is only part of the equation.

As a number of supermarkets near campus have recently closed, many Cal Poly students are increasingly looking to the campus food environment for all their meals. Professors Marilyn Tseng and Dawn Neill and four undergraduate students recently published the findings from their Cal Poly campus dining environment study, which made local and campus headlines. They showed that healthy food is available on campus; of the 314 meals analyzed, nearly 40 of them were considered healthy, which translates to many healthy options. However, in most locations, healthy meals are not yet plentiful or the default option that we might consider optimal for young people on the go. This underscores the need for us as campus food consumers to vote with our forks — if you want something healthier, request it. If you know of good, healthy food somewhere on campus, share that information with your friends. We all have a voice in creating the campus food environment, and we all can play a part.

In other research news, STRIDE faculty members Alison Ventura and Kari Pilolla have begun a novel obesity prevention study examining the impact of expanded nutrition education exhibits at the Santa Maria Valley Discovery Museum. This is the first of three STRIDE Seed Funding Initiative projects that will be highlighted over the next few issues, so stay tuned. Special thanks to the Colleges of Science and Mathematics; Liberal Arts; and Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences for joint support of these exciting new projects. STRIDE research is truly an interdisciplinary, campus-wide endeavor.

Our students are also engaged in research as principal investigators. Kinesiology graduate student Haley Terndrup is leading a study on osteoporosis risk in post-menopausal women. Undergraduates Molly Iwasaki, a kinesiology major, and Maritsa Enriquez, a nutrition major, are also heading up their own projects. Iwasaki is investigating older adult physical activity for fall prevention, and Enriquez is studying biochemical risk factors from the FLASH study. At STRIDE, our faculty and students appreciate the importance and unpredictability of scientific inquiry as a way to generate understanding. As Albert Einstein allegedly quipped, “If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it?”

I look forward to your continued partnership and support as we stride into spring, pun intended. Please come visit us at STRIDE whenever you happen to be in the neighborhood — you might get lucky and come across a class preparing some delicious food.

See you next quarter, 

Aydin Nazmi

 

 

Image by Embassy Suites {http://www.embassysuitessocal.com/destinations/san-luis-obispo.html}