Interview and article prepared for the Philadelphia Business Journal, as filed last week, without edits, to run in last Friday’s edition.Gary Foster is moonlighting.The director of Temple University’s Center for Obesity Research and Education has assumed the presidency of the Obesity Society, an interdisciplinary group based in Maryland that is considered to hold preeminence in the field of
obesity. The commitments are demanding.“It’s a challeneg and opportunity. The presidential activities take considerable time and effort,” said Foster, 48, who grew up in Levittown.The benefit for Temple is the increased visibility Foster is giving CORE, which opened in March 2006 on Temple’s health sciences campus.“The work is not all unreated, so there’s lots of synergies,” said Foster, who was courted from his position as clinical director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Weight and Eating Disorders to start Temple’s program. He traded 25 years at Penn for the chance to chair the largest school-based obesity prevention trial in the country, based in more than 10,000 square feet of dedicated research and clinical space.In 1981, he took a research assistant position at the University of Pennsylvania. There he worked under the legendary obesity physician Dr. Albert J. Stunkard, among other “luminaries,” including Kelly D. Brownell, who is now the director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.“It was pretty clear for me,” he said. From then on, a man who never had a weight problem himself was determined to find a reason why so many others do.He went back to school. He got a masters in psychology from Penn and his PhD in clinical psychology from Temple. And his interest continues.“We don’t know as much about obesity as the lay public thinks we do,” he said. “We eat too much and don’t exercise enough… it’s more complex than that.”He has been a part of the group for nearly 20 years. Now, as president, he thinks it’s time to decide for what the group wants to be known.“Obesity is the most prevelant, serious public health issue of our time,” he said. “We at the Obesity Society need to be poisted to address that…”
Tag: Temple University
University does something illegal to puppy
Canine solicitation has been criminalized.
The signature item at Temple University’s fourth annual Owl Club auction, held on Saturday, was a cute golden retriever puppy, in addition to Wing Bowl passes, Philadelphia Eagles tickets, and golf packages with Temple football Head Coach Al Golden.
Turns out, though, that only a licensed kennel can sell a dog, as the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
So while proceeds from the auction benefit Temple athletics, including the reported $700 that women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley paid for the dog, Temple might run into more trouble, as they face a citation for the infraction.
Men's college basketball video
For The Temple News, the college newspaper for which I work, I filmed yesterday’s men’s basketball game between Temple University and crosstown Big 5 rival St. Joseph’s. A friend and colleague, Sean Blanda, edited it. The quality is less than stellar because of some technicalities – this was our paper’s first foray into adding video to our Web site – but check it out. Temple lost on a buzzer beater.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5Ncgl5Bvx0]
A publishing meeting
Today, I briefly met with a representative from Temple University Press, set up by a professor-friend of mine.
I had forwarded two query letters to the rep, one on a collection of writing I had done while in Japan, another regarding my desire to compare the lives of a handful of North Philadelphia residents whom I had come to know through my coverage of the community for The Temple News.
He was kind and offered a great deal of insight into the publishing a world, a place I have long wanted to visit but never understood how to arrive. That said, I have no reason to believe the publisher was a place to shop my two ideas for published work.
He did suggest I write a full chapter of my suggested Japan manuscript and have him give it a read. It can only be considered a small step in the direction of a career in writing.