NEWS & UPDATES
PODCAST APPEARANCES
Tips with Toni – S01:E215: BMI Is Bogus With Mike Fedewa, PhD, Co-Creator Of The made Health Fitness App
Helping you get healthy, one bite at a time. We talk about the limitations of BMI, and why many of us should be tracking our changes in body composition….not the scale.
FIT2BTIDE – S05.E10: Body Composition and Physical Activity
A show about whole body and soul wellness hosted by Sheena Gregg, Assistant Director of Student Health Education and Prevention at the University of Alabama, and Whitney Pape, Manager of Fitness Services at the University of Alabama Recreation Center.
AUDIO FILE IS TOO LARGE FOR UPLOAD (MAX IS 50MB)
Radio Cade – S01.E103: The Scale Isn’t Telling You The Full Truth, Trust Your Smartphone Instead
Everyday people around the world step on to a scale to see what they weigh, but is this really the most effective tool for measuring our health? Michael Fedewa and Mike Esco, lifelong health and fitness researchers, co-founders of made Health and Fitness, and Cade Prize finalists tell us why cutting edge technology on our smartphones may be the best tool for managing our health. By simply downloading an app and taking a photo we can gain an accurate assessment of our health, body fat % included, that is as accurate as what we could get from a high-tech lab.
ARTICLES
HOW YOU’RE MADE
Across campus, undergraduate students are getting priceless hands-on experience by immersing themselves in research. Fueled by curiosity, they are integral parts of their respective teams. In the kinesiology department, this is no different, and their contributions are about to be at the world’s fingertips, available for everyone to see and use.
Jessi Bentley and Melissa Hoffman, both students in the kinesiology lab, got their starts with the Emerging Scholars program, which helps undergraduate students get connected with a faculty member and begin researching.
Researchers Create Mobile App to Trim Process of Collecting Body Fat Data
In the smartphone era, there’s a reasonable expectation information and solutions can be achieved through an app.
That expectation isn’t often applied to information obtained in clinical settings. Consider body fat percentage, the amount of fat on our bodies. Getting an accurate number typically requires sophisticated medical devices and an expert technician, not something an app on a phone can easily accomplish.
https://www.ua.edu/news/2020/02/an-app-for-fat/
Searching for More Answers
One of our undergraduate research assistants was highlighted by the College of Education for her work on a number of ongoing projects in the lab.
“This undergrad’s autoimmune disorder prompted her to change her major in order to study the disease This led her to a #TideResearch opportunity with a UA faculty member a rare feat for an undergrad student: getting published in an academic journal http://bit.ly/2CtnDLy .
https://www.ua.edu/news/2019/03/searching-for-more-answers/?sf100104612=1
Interview with Jermarcus Lewis – Undergraduate Emerging Scholar Fall2018
Hello Fellow Scholars,
On October 2, 2018, I had an interview with Dr. Fedewa, he saw research during his degree at North Texas but was not interested due to it being a smaller University that was more focused on teaching. But, during his time with cardiac rehab he became interested, though his passion of research is due to his ability to do research that reflect him. For example, the process of research helped him design a program that caused him to loss 30lbs, but meta-analysis is his favorite aspect of research.
Thus, it’s no wonder his agenda is on body composition and physical activity and the devices used to measure it. In Dr. Fedewa research, he incorporates all types of methods, but more specifically is cross sectional(lots of people/large data-looks for correlation) and experimental(small # of people, seeing if exercise is effective).
Dr. Fedewa said the biggest lesson he has learned in research is to be cautious and very careful about conclusions and always believe the truth is somewhere, so trust. With that being said, an amazing fact is that his research has contradicted two studies by revealing blood markers could be changed with exercise, C-reactive protein and leptin to be exact.
Most importantly to me is that undergraduate researchers is everything to his research; we collect data, work in the lab, and our excitatment about research gives him fuel. Lastly, he advised me in saying that we all have our own bias and perspective on and in life which we can use to drive our research.
Emerging Scholar Faculty Blog
Dr. Fedewa currently researches physical activity, exercise, and body composition centered around a few basic questions: How much do people move? How is a person’s activity level related to their body composition (bone, muscle, fat)? How can we design more effective weight loss programs with exercise and physical activity?
“My first experience with research came as a participant in a study, but I quickly learned there were many more questions than answers. Undergraduate research provides a fantastic opportunity for students to answer very difficult questions and to make an impact on their communities. Every researcher views a problem or question from a different perspective. Students should realize their own perspective is different than anyone else in the world, and they might be able to help solve these problems in a way that no one else can.”
https://undergraduateresearch.ua.edu/spotlights/dr-michael-fedewa