UGA Today

Childhood obesity expert to speak Feb. 6 at UGA

January 24, 2013

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Denise Horton

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  Michael Goran

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Related Sites

• Obesity Initiative
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Athens, Ga. - Michael Goran, a leading researcher in the field of childhood obesity and a professor at the University of Southern California, will discuss his work Feb. 6 from 12:20-1:30 p.m. in room 104 of Conner Hall at the University of Georgia. His talk will cover "The Sugar ‘Maize': Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Obesity and Metabolic Risk—from Genes to Policy."

Goran's research explores how the body regulates where excess fat is deposited, how increased body fat affects health and how fat is regulated during growth and development across segments of the population.

A professor of preventive medicine, physiology, biophysics and pediatrics at USC, Goran is the director of both the Childhood Obesity Research Center and the Center for Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer at the Keck School of Medicine. He is co-director of the university's Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute and holds an endowed chair in childhood obesity and diabetes.

For more than 20 years, his research has focused on issues surrounding childhood obesity. As the primary investigator on grants funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, he is exploring the metabolic factors linking obesity to the increased risk of disease during growth and development. He is using this information as a basis for developing new behavioral and community approaches for disease prevention and risk reduction.

Goran is particularly interested in ethnic disparities in obesity and obesity-related diseases.

In addition to having published nearly 200 peer-reviewed journal articles, Goran also was the developer and executive producer of an interactive computer game that promotes physical activity in children. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Pediatric Obesity, associate editor of the journal Obesity and co-editor of the "Handbook of Pediatric Obesity: Etiology, Pathophysiology and Prevention," published in 2006.

Goran's presentation is sponsored by the UGA Obesity Initiative and the department of foods and nutrition in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

For more information on the UGA Obesity Initiative, see http://obesity.ovpr.uga.edu/. For more information on the department of foods and nutrition, see http://www.fcs.uga.edu/fdn/.