Kyle Kellams: Our series Balance about nutrition, exercise, and wellness has covered quite a bit over the past few months—from food safety at social gatherings to new research into concussions to the developing science behind hydration. But the past several editions have had something missing: one of our co-hosts.
Erin Howey, associate professor of exercise science at the University of Arkansas, was in Australia last semester. She and our other co-host, Jamie Baum, associate professor in the U of A Department of Food Science who directs the Center for Human Nutrition, both spent time recently at a conference in New Zealand. Now they’re both back for our Dog Days of Summer edition of Balance. We’re getting back into the groove.
Erin, welcome back.
Erin Howie: G’day, Kyle.
Kellams: How long were you in New Zealand?
Howie: Jamie and I both went to New Zealand for nine days, but I was in Australia for four and a half months. The New Zealand portion was for a conference.
Kellams: And what was the conference?
Howie: It was the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. It’s a long title, but I think we’ve had enough conversations here on Balance to kind of get an idea of what may have been discussed.
Kellams: Yeah, the theme was behavior change, right?
Howie: Exactly. It ties in to what we talk about on Balance and what Jamie and I have been looking at in our DEFEND research project around nutrition and physical activity literacy. What we know about how to change behavior and make people healthier—and probably a lot more about what we still don’t know.
Kellams: And Jamie, in Erin’s absence over those months, we had quite a few conversations. We’re going to get those going again with guests as we move into autumn?
Jamie Baum: Right, I’m looking forward to it. We’d talked about maybe having a recap of all our talks for the kickoff of Razorback football season—food safety, physical activity, beating the heat, things like that.
Kellams: I don’t know if we’ve touched on this before, but these are the dog days of summer. Between Independence Day weekend and whenever you consider the end of summer—school starting, temperatures dropping—it tends to be a lazy time for a lot of people.
Talking about behavior changes, are there things you can do in the heat to make sure you stay active?
Howie: Yes. We’ve had discussions with guests like Dr. McDermott about hydration, heat, and making sure you’re acclimatized to it. If you’re outside in the heat every day, it’s kind of okay—as long as you’re paying attention to drinking water and staying hydrated.
But if you don’t like it and it’s uncomfortable, it's a great opportunity to try something new or change your schedule. For example, I usually go for a 4 p.m. walk, but yesterday I was drenched in sweat. So today, I went in the morning when it was cooler. Or try swimming or water-based activities—just wear sunscreen.
Baum: I’d also say we do have a mall—mall walking. My mom and her friends, who are in their 70s, mall walk in the summer because it’s air-conditioned. Malls aren’t crowded anymore, and you can really get a good pace going.
Kellams: That’s what I like about the Northwest Arkansas Mall—there are lots of mall walkers. And I was there not too long ago looking for a tie. There were a lot of people there; it wasn’t a cavern.
Going back to the conference, you mentioned behavioral change and the idea that there’s still a lot we don’t know. But was there new data or new ways of looking at behavior?
Howie: Definitely. There’s always talk about technology and how we can measure behaviors better. Wearables are big. Since I focus more on physical activity, that’s where I paid attention. Jamie went to more of the nutrition sessions. But these tools may help us understand behavior better.
Dr. Melody Ding from the University of Sydney gave a keynote. She said we have all this information about physical activity and nutrition—and now’s the time to start getting people to use it. It’s complicated. It involves whole systems and communities. We need to do better in our research, in dissemination, and in changing those systems.
Baum: I went to a pre-conference on “Healthy Active Aging.” They talked about designing studies that consider cost-benefit analysis. We know some things work, but maybe they’re too expensive or too difficult to implement. Or people drop out once the study ends.
The whole conference had this theme: when you're thinking about future research, ask how it relates to the people who need it and how feasible it is. That was a good shift. Because like Erin said, we have so much data—but what do we do with it? Why isn’t it leading to real behavior change?
Kellams: You bring up dissemination. I imagine there are different levels. Was there any talk about how to implement these changes community-wide or even globally?
Howie: Yes. From the traditional academic world, we don’t really know. You probably know more about getting information out. But I heard one session on workplace physical activity. Their intervention worked in a few places, but they’re now trying to go bigger. They’re redesigning materials, thinking about what images to use, and how to make messages relatable and inclusive. It’s a whole new territory.
Baum: They did a great job involving the Māori population in New Zealand. Different cultures and communities have different needs. New Zealand is a bit ahead in that they give the Māori a strong voice at the policy table, in research, in sport, and in higher ed. That was refreshing to see.
Howie: One of the buzzwords is “co-design.” From the beginning of a study or program, you involve the community you're trying to reach. They help define what’s relevant. Maybe they’re not concerned with physical activity but more with youth social engagement. You can't come in later and say, “Here’s the program, take it.” That doesn’t work.
Kellams: Sounds like a whole health approach. We’ve got the Whole Health Institute in Bentonville, and the Alice Walton School of Medicine is emphasizing that. Was that part of the conference theme?
Baum: People know it needs to be well-rounded. But in academic settings, we’re often specialized. For change to happen, we have to work together. I’ll think about a health issue differently than Erin does, and both of us think differently than a social scientist. We need to start speaking the same research language to make real impact.
I was in a food literacy workshop—food literacy includes all the skills you need to eat healthy, like cooking and education. It touches so many parts of the system. One nutrition person alone can’t make it happen. So I think a shift is coming.
Kellams: Well, we’ll continue using these segments to share that information. A lot of our guests refer to new studies and findings. And we’d still like to hear questions from listeners.
Baum: Yeah, they can send them to KUAFinfo@uark.edu, and we’ll try to find an expert who can answer or explain the science.
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