Earthquakes, obesity, diabetes, epidemics, water - Issues, experts and ideas

Issue: Curbing kids' appetite for media consumption

With 26 percent of Canadian children and adolescents aged two to 17 overweight or obese, child obesity has become a global concern. A $50,000 national grant is enabling SFU communication professor Stephen Kline to further his research on a link he has found between media and food consumption among kids who live and breathe computers. During an earlier school-based project, also funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Kline found that children engaged in non-computer related play activities snacked and ate less than those focused on computer games. Kline can elaborate on the project and his latest results.

Issue: Diabetes rate among Indo-Canadians soars

An information campaign aimed at new Canadians to combat the spread of diabetes is the Canadian Diabetes Association's reaction to alarmingly high rates of the disease among Indo-Canadians. Diets that are rich in butter and sugar are a contributing factor. SFU assistant kinesiology professor Scott Lear is involved in a study to determine how excess body fat is accumulated and distributed in different ethnic groups, in order to determine the need for population-specific obesity targets to address health concerns such as diabetes and heart disease.

Issue: Outwitting Mother Nature

Humans may churn out new technologies, therapies and drugs in an effort to beat viral and bacterial diseases into submission. But in his latest book on the evolution of epidemic diseases, SFU bioethicist Tom Koch says that humans will not outwit Mother Nature. Koch's book Cartographies of Disease: Maps, Mapping, and Medicine maps the evolution of 300 years of epidemic diseases, and shows how humans unwittingly advance this evolution through trade, urbanization, income inequity and war. Koch can discuss the timeliness of his book against the backdrop of today's potential disease time bombs, including the environmental fallout from the New Orlean's hurricane and the migration of avian flu.

Issue: Tapping into our groundwater

Threats by environmental pollution, urban development and climate change to the accessibility and safety of drinking water have earth scientists increasingly concerned about the fate of ground water supplies. SFU earth scientist Diana Allen can discuss how natural and man-made forces are coming together to make the arid Okanagan's ground water increasingly vulnerable to exploitation and contamination. Allen heads up a nationally funded group of researchers pioneering new ways to predict and plan for groundwater variability.