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A Busy Spring on the Conference Circuit

February 14, 2013
 

Get ready to pack your bags — conference season is heating up! Several PreventObesity.net Leaders are helping organize conferences across the country in the coming weeks.

First up is the 2nd Annual Childhood Obesity Bay Area Conference in San Francisco on Feb. 23. The event is organized by Slow Food San Francisco, and conference Director Laura O’Donohue tells the Inside Track that attendees can expect an exciting day. “It's an all-day conference with speakers from diverse fields, such as technology, medicine, environmental toxins, business, etc., all addressing obesity prevention,” the PreventObesity.net Leader says via email.

Scheduled speakers include Gary Taubes, the author of Good Calories, Bad Calories and Why We Get Fat, who will discuss “dietary misperceptions” that are driving the epidemic. George Flores, program manager of community health at the California Endowment, will talk about his organization’s efforts to prevent childhood obesity and successful trends that are beginning to emerge.

General admission to the conference is $80, while students and food activists under 30 can get in for $60. The conference will be held at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. Click here for more information and to register.

Next up is the Family Dinner Conference, scheduled for April 18 in New York. Sponsored by the organization Time at the Table, the conference aims to create venue for parents, professionals and others to gather and discuss ways to encourage more people to have regular family dinners, which have been shown to promote healthy eating habits.

Time at the Table founder Billy Mawhiney tells the Inside Track that the conference will be set up in a centralized room, designed to facilitate discussion between speakers and attendees. “We want it to be a full conversation, that’s the main goal,” says Mawhiney, a PreventObesity.net Leader.

Mawhiney says he’s already gotten positive feedback about the conference, and folks have even asked him to hold a similar event on the west coast. (He plans to get through the New York event before making any promises.)

Admission to the day-long conference is $100 for individuals and $250 for family-orientated businesses. Click here for more information and to register.

On April 24, the St. Vrain Valley School District and Red Hawk Elementary School in Colorado will hold the Excellence in School Summit, which will study the correlations between physical activity and academic success. Astute Inside Track readers will recall that Red Hawk Elementary School was a national winner in 2012 in the Active Schools Acceleration Project Innovation Competition, which recognized the school for its innovative physical activity programs.

Dr. John Ratey is scheduled to headline the event. Ratey is the author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. Representatives from six school-based physical activity programs recognized by ASAP also will attend. In addition, the conference will include a wellness forum, designed to outline the implications of wellness policies in schools and the pragmatics or implementing them, according to organizer Deb Schoeneshoefer.

Single registration to the conference costs $150, while group registration is $130 for groups of three to six people. Click here for more information and to register.

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