Story Ideas for Media 5/9/11
News
New project targets childhood obesity in rural Ohio. Ohio State University Extension is part of a $4.5 million project targeted at combating childhood obesity.
The goal of this project is to find ways to help rural communities create a culture of healthy eating and physical activity to prevent childhood obesity in low-income young children, said Karen Bruns, assistant director of OSU Extension in charge of Extension's Family and Consumer Sciences programs. Bruns will serve as Ohio's principal investigator on the project.
OSU Extension's Family and Consumer Sciences program will receive $745,744 for the five-year project.
The Childhood Obesity Prevention Grant was one of 24 funded at the end of April by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture
"Each state will choose two rural communities to be involved in the project," Bruns said. "We will work with community coalitions to complete an assessment of their communities, choose interventions from a menu of approaches, and implement interventions to prevent childhood obesity." The focus will be on programs serving four-year-old children. SEE: http://extension.osu.edu/news-releases/archives/2011/may/ohio-involved-in-project-targeting-childhood-obesity.
Research
No smoking policies may present challenges to treatment centers. When a new tobacco-free policy was instituted at an Ohio women's substance abuse treatment center, both smokers and non-smokers were more likely to leave treatment early in the first few months after the policy change, a new study found.
The results don't mean treatment centers shouldn't try smoking bans, according to the researchers, but they do highlight the challenges involved with implementing a new policy that goes against years of conventional thinking.
Researchers found that the number of patients who completed a program at the women's treatment center decreased 28 percentage points - from 70 to 42 percent - following the center's implementation of a tobacco-free policy.
“Following the implementation of the new policy, clients were significantly less likely to complete treatment than they were prior to the adoption of tobacco-free policies,” said Thomas Gregoire, co-author of the study and associate professor of social work at Ohio State University. CONTACT: Pam Frost Gorder, (614) 292-9475; Gorder.1@osu.edu, SEE: http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/smokeban.htm
Events
Ohio State students constructing solar house for October competition; early preview is May 12. Ohio State students are hoping their new solar house, enCORE, can repeat the university’s high marks in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011 competition in October. The team will hold an open house and preview of the house from 4:30 – 7:30 p.m. on Thursday (5/12) at the construction site, an open air shed behind the Agricultural Engineering Building, 590 Woody Hayes Drive. This is the first public preview of the house and media are welcome to cover the event. Student decathletes will be available for interviews. Construction has been ongoing for the last few months and will continue through the summer. Once complete, the house will be transported to Washington D.C. in October for the national competition. To learn more, see http://solardecathlon.osu.edu. CONTACT: Amy Murray, (614) 292-8385.
Eye exams for babies during InfantSee Week – May 16. Students in Ohio State’s College of Optometry will examine the eyes of infants from 1-5 p.m. next Monday (5/16) as part of national InfantSee Week, May 16-20. The free comprehensive eye and vision assessment for infants 6-12 months old are available year round. The exams take place at the College of Optometry, 338 West Tenth Ave. InfantSEE is a national initiative designed to begin young children on the road to a lifetime of healthy vision, since many eye problems can be identified by an eye doctor in the infant's first year of life. CONTACT: Jeffrey Walline, (614) 247-6840. SEE: http://greatvision.osu.edu/infantsee/.
Service dogs get free eye exams – May 6, 11, 16, 18, and 25. Veterinary ophthalmologists from The Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Center will offer free sight-saving eye exams for service dogs on five days in May. Drs. Anne Metzler and David Wilkie, board certified by the American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists, are two of more than 195 board certified veterinary ophthalmologists across the U.S. and Canada offering these eye assessments to thousands of service dogs nationwide as part of National Service Dog Eye Exam Day. CONTACT: Melissa Weber, (614) 292-3752.
Vehicles of the future on display – May 13. EcoCAR, Buckeye Bullet, Formula SAE and other student projects will be on display from 2-4 p.m. on Friday (5/15) at Ohio State’s Center for Automotive Research (CAR) 2nd Annual Ohio State Student Motor Sports Open House. Ohio State students design and build the vehicles for national competitions against other top universities.
EcoCAR is a three-year contest to re-engineer a GM vehicle. Ohio State won the first year of the comptetition and hopes to win the overall contest when it ends next month. Ohio State’s entry is a plug-in electric vehicle capable of traveling 40 miles before it burns any gas. Ohio State competes against 16 other universities across North America.
The vehicles will be on display at CAR, 930 Kinnear Road. SEE: http://car.osu.edu/
The person listed as the CONTACT will have the most current information about the story. Call on our media relations staff for help with any Ohio State story: Liz Cook, (614) 292-7276 or cook.17@osu.edu; Shelly Hoffman, (614) 247-4748 or hoffman.511@osu.edu; Jim Lynch, (614) 247-4110 or lynch.270@osu.edu; or Amy Murray, (614) 292-8385 or murray-goedde.1@osu.edu
