The initiative incorporates education of graduate students, undergrads, professionals and the public as core to its vision. It also integrates outreach, Extension and engagement in all forms into its research and education goals. The following are but a brief list of education and outreach accomplishments:
Outreach
• State Fair, 2005. The University building featured research-based information through HFHL daily demonstrations on nutrition and diet, hand washing, food safety procedures and general health – and reached hundreds of thousands of citizens.
• May 18-20, 2005, conference. The international Whole Grains & Health Summit helped position the reputation of the University as a leader in research and education and drew 350 attendees as well as world-renown speakers from the public and private sector.
• September 2004 Ancel Keys Symposium on Nutrition and Health. Brought together international researchers for a two-day conference to address obesity prevention and management as a public health issue.
• Nov. 2-3, 2004, conference. The HFHL initiative was publicly launched with a two-day conference that included nationally recognized speakers and more than 100 individuals who actively engaged in the discussion and articulation of priorities, needs and barriers that can be addressed via the initiative.
• Public/private partnerships. The Food Industry Center joined with the National Grocers Association and Pepsi, Inc., to convene a roundtable on obesity in 2003. The Center partnered with the USDA’s Economic Research Service in 2004 on a research conference on whole grain consumption.
• Health Behaviors: Molecules to Policy, a new seminar series features research issues that cross-cut energy balance-related health behaviors, primarily smoking, eating, alcohol and physical activity. Joint among the Obesity Prevention Center, the Minnesota Obesity Center and the Cancer Center.
• Teen information. Teens and young adults who are vegetarians or who are thinking of become vegetarians can obtain science-based information from “The Vegetarian Manifesto, a book by faculty members Cheryl L. Perry and Leslie A. Lytle and recent graduate Teresa G. Jacobs.
• Alumni. The U of M Alumni Association’s annual homecoming breakfast has emphasized HFHL since 2003, with educational messages of food, health and food safety, reaching more than 4,000 people to date.
Education
• Post doc experiences. The Center for Animal Health and Food Safety partnered with Jennie-O Foods, Inc., to develop a new post-doctoral internship program that provides graduate students with unique experiences in animal health, human health and food safety. The Center also received funds from the National Pork Board to support a post-doctoral fellowship focused on worker and community health related to animal production agriculture.
• Undergraduate experiences. With an emphasis on HFHL, the Food Science and Nutrition College Bowl Team continues to routinely capture the top two awards at the Institute of Food Technologists annual meeting.
• Interdisciplinary fora for faculty. The Foods and Health Roundtable Series brought faculty and others together throughout 2004 around topics of food industry litigation, promotion of healthy eating and physical activity among youth of color and food safety and protection. Similarly, the Center for Plants and Human Health convened interdisciplinary discussion on botanicals in women’s health, the role of soy constituents in cardiovascular disease and food-related inhibition of cellular signaling molecules that are involved in cancer development.
• Partnerships to benefit pre-K to 12. Partnership with the Science Museum of Minnesota reaches statewide audience of children and youth. Fellows and senior veterinary medicine students deliver demonstrations, workbooks and skits in elementary classrooms. New Moves, a girls-only physical education class designed to prevent obesity and promote positive body image, ha been adopted by Twin Cities high schools that participated in a seven-year School of Public Healthy research project.