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Fat
or thin ... life matters!
In October, Deakin University’s Research Services Division hosted a public forum – YES I AM FAT BUT IT IS NOT MY FAULT – as part of the Year for Special Emphasis on Research at Deakin.
The forum was recorded by ABC Radio National’s Life Matters and an edited version broadcast on October 31.
If you missed that broadcast, you can still hear it by logging on to: abc.net.au/rn/lifematters and clicking on the program for October 31.
The forum was to our delight the whole show!
Some of Australia’s best minds were assembled at St Michael’s Church in Collins Street, Melbourne to discuss just whose responsibility it was to deal with the “millennium disease” – overweight and obesity.
Deakin’s researchers are regarded as world leaders in the study of both the prevention of and cure for obesity related problems like chronic heart disease and diabetes.
They were represented this night by Professor Richard Ingleby from the Deakin’s Law School who said any argument that it was the individual’s responsibility to cope with the epidemic, not the Government’s, was risible.
Professor Ingleby is the first researcher to look seriously at the role of the legislators in coping with the enormous social impacts of obesity related illnesses.
The other speakers were Professor Louise Baur from Sydney University, Professor David Penington and Dr Francis Macnab.
“It was a tremendous opportunity and honour for Deakin to bring together this high quality panel,” said Alison Hadfield, the Director of the Research Services Division.
“We are also grateful to St Michael’s Church and to Radio National for joining with us in a partnership which will considerably raise awareness about one of the major problems in our society.
“We are indeed fortunate at Deakin to have so many of the world’s top researchers in this field.
“It is nevertheless important that we hear ideas from outside the university, and we were thrilled to have, in addition to Richard Ingleby, Professors Baur and Penington, and Dr McNab on the panel.
“Without a doubt they provided plenty of food for thought for not just the audience there on the night, but the one million Radio National listeners around the nation whom we all know include so many of Australia’s leading decision makers.
“It’s another sign of how our researchers at Deakin can and do make a difference!”
Quality and Impact - Dr Elise Davis leads the world
Deakin
University is taking the global lead in improving the quality of life
of young children with cerebral palsy.
The ground breaking – and occasionally heart-breaking – work is being done by Dr Elise Davis, an award winning senior research fellow in the School of Health and Social Development.
In October, Dr Davis’s work won her the New Investigator Award sponsored by the International Society for Quality of Life Research.
“It is a project we have been working on for three years with clinicians both from the Royal Children’s Hospital and elsewhere around the world,” Dr Davis said.“In the past, there have been no quality of life questionnaires with which to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments for children with cerebral palsy.
“Evaluation in the past has tended to be based on measures of functional status.
“What we did was develop a quality of life questionnaire through talking to parents and children to understand what impacts on children’s lives.
“We assess the child’s perspective and the parents perspective however, in some cases, the children can’t report themselves, so we speak to their parents.
“When we produced our final questionnaire, we presented it at the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Development Medicine Conference in Boston.
“We suddenly discovered just how important our work was when we got requests from all over the world for the questionnaire.”
It is now being translated into a wide range of languages, including Hebrew and Chinese.
The next step, having come up with an effective way to assess the quality of life of young people with cerebral palsy, is to find just what actions can improve it.
“We have just received funding to work with the Riding for Disabled Association of Victoria, an organisation that takes people with disabilities horse-riding, in order to carry out a randomised control trial to determine whether therapeutic horse riding increases the quality of life of children with cerebral palsy,” Dr Davis said.
Research Services Division:
Geelong Campus at Waurn Ponds
Pigdons Road, Geelong, Victoria 3217 Australia
Telephone: +61 3 5227 2673 Facsimile:
+61 3 5227 2175
Email: dvc-research@deakin.edu.au
www.deakin.edu.au/research
Deakin Research Updates - back copies
Back issues of Deakin Research Updates are available at: www.deakin.edu.au/research
Hip Hip Hooray
Research engineer Dr Cui’e Wen is providing hope of a vastly improved quality of life for the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who will, at some stage in their lives, need bone transplants.
Dr Wen, who works at the Centre for Material and Fibre Innovation on Deakin University’s Waurn Ponds campus, is developing metals that will better replicate the natural characteristics of bone.
The quality and importance of her work was rewarded in October when she was awarded a $330,000 grant from the Australian Research Council.
"We are thrilled that Cui'e's project has been funded," said Professor Peter Hodgson, director of the CMFI.
Winning the fight against fat
Deakin University’s pre-eminent place in the fight against obesity has been re-confirmed by the awarding of a $2 million National Health and Medical Research Council grant to a team led by Dr Kylie Ball.
The research will investigate the causes of the increased risk of obesity among socio-economically disadvantage women and children.
“This is a very exciting development for our team and for Deakin University,” said Dr Ball, a Senior Research Fellow from the Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research at Deakin.
- Improving the health of Aboriginal children
Events
9-10 November, 2006
Conference on Research Planning and Management
For further information:
patricia.lopez@deakin.edu.au