Physical Activity or Body Weight: Which Is More Important for Your Health? Steven Blair

 
11 Nov 2010
 
8:00 PM
 
Great Hall, Memorial Union

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Steven Blair is a recognized authority on exercise and its health benefits. He is coauthor of Fitness after 50, Active Living Every Day, and Physical Activity and Health and was the senior scientific editor for the first U.S. Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health. He has done extensive research using the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study, which examines the impact of diet, physical activity and other lifestyle factors on mortality. Blair is currently on the faculty at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health, where he holds joint appointments in the Department of Exercise Science and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Prior to that, he was a researcher and then president and CEO of the Cooper Institute, a nonprofit research and education center recognized as a leader in exercise science. The 2010 Helen LeBaron Hilton Chair in Human Sciences.

Steven Blair earned a B.A. in physical education from Kansas Wesleyan University and an M.S. and P.E.D. in physical education from Indiana University. He was a postdoctoral scholar in preventive cardiology at Stanford University from 1978-1980. Blair is a Benjamin Meaker Fellow at the University of Bristol, England; a fellow in the American College of Epidemiology, Society for Behavioral Medicine, American College of Sports Medicine, American Heart Association, and American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education; and was elected to membership in the American Epidemiological Society. Blair is a past-president of the National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity, and the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education. He was also president of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). He has received awards from many professional associations, including a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health, ACSM Honor Award, Robert Levy Lecture Award from the American Heart Association, and is one of the few persons outside the U.S. Public Health Service to be awarded the Surgeon General's Medallion. He has published over 360 papers and chapters in the scientific literature.