Posted May 14, 2010
Exercise and healthy food are the keys to better health, but the problem is making good choices in a fast-paced world where a tasty cheeseburger is inexpensive and just a drive-through away.
A University of Missouri professor is developing a program aimed at combating the country’s obesity epidemic. Christopher Hardin, chairman of the Nutrition & Exercise Physiology Department, hopes to develop a multifaceted diet and exercise lab known as MU Nutritional Center for Health, or MUNCH.
Hardin came up with the idea shortly after becoming chairman of the nutritional sciences department, which is under the umbrella of three colleges: the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources; the College of Human Environmental Sciences; and MU’s School of Medicine. The lab should help those three disciplines intersect, he said.
“What we eat, the food from the ag side, affects health on the medical side,” Hardin said. “MU has the potential to develop new, novel foods that can help improve human health.”
Hardin envisions that MUNCH would include a test kitchen where experts could demonstrate healthy cooking techniques to small groups. Cameras overhead would film the demonstrations, allowing them to be streamed online and accessible via MU Extension to all Missourians.
A more advanced metabolic kitchen would allow the university to conduct human feeding studies. For instance, if the college of agriculture developed healthier soy, researchers could compare the health benefits of that soy versus unaltered soy. Such studies would require participants to let researchers control everything they eat over an extended period of time.
MUNCH also will include an observation lab where researchers could watch how food choices are made. Likely, the program would use children from MU’s Child Development Lab next door, and observers would simply watch what influences food choices, such as advertising or instructions from a guardian.
Hardin anticipates the lab will cost $2.1 million, $600,000 of which he’s already raised through grants, donations and university contributions. He was set to open the first in September in the basement in Gwynn Hall. The basement now is unusable space that Hardin hoped to renovate.
Plans changed three weeks ago, though, when Hardin got word that Gwynn Hall will soon be gutted. Built in 1920, the hall moved up on MU Campus Facilities’ renovation schedule after it was identified as being in critical need of renovation. Facilities spokeswoman Karlan Seville said the building will be renovated and reopened in time for the 2013 fall semester. The project is estimated to cost $8 million and will come from capital maintenance funds.
Although MUNCH is delayed, “it’s a good problem to have,” Hardin said. “It’s a disruption, but exciting. It sets us back a couple of years but will result in a better facility in the long run.”
Reach Janese Heavin at 573-815-1705 or e-mail jheavin@columbiatribune.com.
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