Meetings and Workshops 2003

The inaugural meeting of AACORN's charter members was held in Bethesda MD on March 22-23, 2003, with sponsorship from the Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity at the Centers for Disease Control. Members summarized current scientific evidence about the following topics.

• The association of obesity with cardiovascular disease and mortality in African American adults
• Intersections of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease
• Weight loss interventions for diabetes in African American adults
• Obesity and children
• Dietary patterns of African Americans and how they relate to obesity and obesity-related diseases
• Implications of dietary practices in African Americans for obesity prevention and treatment
• Weight gain issues in African American Cancer survivors
• Designing culturally-sensitive measurement instruments with applications to weight and body size issues
• Building deep cultural structure into weight loss interventions for African Americans
• Family-based intervention for obesity prevention and treatment among African American girls
• Interventions to increase physical activity in African Americans
• An environmental approach to the prevention of weight gain in African American women

Immediately after the AACORN meeting the Charter Members participated in the March 24-25, 2003 Think Tank on Enhancing Obesity Research at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (National Institutes of Health).                          See: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/prof/heart/obesity/ob_res_exsum/

The AACORN research priorities that resulted from the combined insights from these two meetings are summarized in the following article:

Achieving Healthy Weight in African-American Communities: Research Perspectives and Priorities

Authors: Kumanyika SK, Gary TL, Lancaster KJ, Samuel-Hodge CD, Banks-Wallace J, Beech BM, Hughes-Halbert C, Karanja N, Odoms-Young AM, Prewitt TE, Whitt-Glover MC.

Published in: Obesity Research. December 2005, volume 13, number 12, pages 2037-2047. Click here to download the article (PDF format).