Daheia Barr-Anderson, PhD, associate professor of Physical Activity and Health Promotion in the School of Kinesiology and director of the Behavioral Physical Activity Laboratory (BPAL), had a paper accepted for publication in the journal, Childhood Obesity. This work is in collaboration with colleagues from Cornell and UMN, and titled, “Diet and physical activity by prediabetes status among U.S. adolescents: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2007-2018.” The main findings support the need for diabetes prevention interventions to target specific food groups and encourage physical activity as adolescents with diabetes reported less than optimal nutritional intake and physical activity compared to adolescents without prediabetes.
Daheia Barr-Anderson, PhD, associate professor in the School of Kinesiology and director of the Behavioral Physical Activity Laboratory (BPAL), attended the 2023 Symposium on Yoga Research (SYR) sponsored by the International Association of Yoga Therapy from Oct 16-18, 2023 hosted at the largest yoga retreat in North America, Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Stockbridge, MA. She has served on the Scientific Program Committee for the past two years; this year she delivered an oral presentation titled, “Conducting Yoga Research in For-Profit Settings: Building Partnerships and Maintaining Scientific Rigor While Navigating Capitalism” and participated in a panel, “Navigating NIH Funding for Yoga Research”, to discuss her experience of applying for and securing funding from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.
Daheia Barr-Anderson, PhD, associate professor in the School of Kinesiology and director of the Behavioral Physical Activity Laboratory (BPAL), lead the study abroad program Empowering Youth through Sport in Kenya. The course focused on the importance of sports within Kenyan culture, along with the long-term opportunities and empowerment that physical activity provides for youth. Students were able to connect with locals and community organizations in Nairobi, the coast of Mombasa, and the rural town of Iten.
To learn more about the students’ experiences, visit their learning abroad blog.
Dr. Eydie Kramer-Kostecka, Amanda Folk, Dr. Daheia J. Barr-Anderson
The article describes research using rural-specific geospatial mapping techniques and a fine scale, within-rural grouping strategy to identify differing levels of access to a physical activity (PA) built environment because all rural spaces are not the same, even in similar regions. All measures of household access to PA infrastructure significantly differed by group. This paper provides future researchers with innovative strategies to map and examine how access to the PA built environment differs within a rural area.
Daheia Barr-Anderson, PhD, associate professor in the School of Kinesiology and director of the Behavioral Physical Activity Laboratory (BPAL), served on the planning committee for the 2022 Symposium on Yoga Research sponsored by the International Association of Yoga Therapists. She presented during the pre-conference workshop, “Online Yoga Programs – A Researcher’s Experience”.
WCCO-TV recently featured a Behavioral Physical Activity Laboratory (BPAL) study, called YogaMoves, in a segment, “UMN Kinesiology Study Hopes To Draw More Black Women To Yoga And Movement.” The piece highlighted the need for additional participants and efforts to draw women of color, particularly women who identify as African-American or Black, to experience the physical and mental health benefits of practicing yoga. Daheia Barr-Anderson, PhD, School of Kinesiology associate professor and BPAL director, was interviewed for the segment.
Amanda Folk and Qiying Huang,School of Kinesiology PhD candidates, have been awarded the prestigious University of Minnesota Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for 2022-2023. The Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) allows the University’s most accomplished PhD candidates an opportunity to devote full-time effort to an outstanding research project and dissertation during the fellowship year. Folk and Huang are among the limited number of graduate students across the University who received the award this year.
Folk is a member of the School’s Behavioral Physical Activity Laboratory (BPAL) and is advised by Daheia Barr-Anderson, PhD, School of Kinesiology associate professor and director of BPAL. Her thesis is titled, “Green Physical Activity in Natural Spaces: Motivators, Barriers, and the Role of Social Media in a Diverse Sample of Adults.”
Huang is a member of the School’s Human Sensorimotor Control Laboratory (HSCL) and is advised by Juergen Konczak, PhD, Kinesiology professor and director of HSCL. Her thesis is titled, “Robot-aided assessment of ankle proprioception in healthy adults and individuals after stroke.”
Daheia Barr-Anderson, PhD, associate professor in the School of Kinesiology and director of the Behavioral Physical Activity Laboratory (BPAL), and graduate students, Amanda Folk and Michael Urvig, have recently submitted a Works-In-Progress abstract and poster on her study entitled “YogaMoves: Developing a Yoga-Based Intervention in Sedentary African-American Women.” YogaMoves is an NIH-funded, two-phase, work-in-progress study to evaluate feasibility, acceptability and safety of a hatha and restorative yoga-based intervention among 60 sedentary, African-American women. The intervention is planned for Summer 2022. The abstract received the Award of Excellence for the Faculty category and Barr-Anderson presented her work at the conference on February 15.
Ayanna Rakhu was just a toddler when she looked up at the lifeguard at Minneapolis’ lake Bde Maka Ska and told her mom, “I want to do that!” Her mom listened, and Rakhu started swimming lessons when she was 6 before swimming competitively until age 12. She got her first job as a lifeguard at 16. And though she chose basketball as the sport she would play through college, her love of swimming has never waned.
“I have held several different positions in aquatics over the years,” says Rakhu, who is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Minnesota’s School of Kinesiology, as well as a certified USA Swimming Coach at Lifetime Athletic. Not surprisingly, her doctoral research is focused on swimming, specifically how to encourage African American mothers to swim, which would hopefully inspire their children to swim too.
“It wasn’t until I was pregnant with my daughter eight years ago that I noticed how few of my peers were spending time at the pool,” she recalls. “I started to understand that was a real issue, and a passion rose up in me to get African American moms and kids swimming.” Through her research project, “Mother May I Swim,” which is supported by the University’s Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center (UROC), Rakhu has been working to understand the reasons why many African American parents and their children don’t swim.
“UROC has been really supportive of my research both financially and through their mission of bringing research to the community,” she says. “That’s why I wanted to partner with them, and I see myself doing talks and workshops at UROC in the future.”
“We need to address the barriers to swimming so more people can enjoy it safely.” – Ayanna Rakhu
The information Rakhu and her research team have gathered will eventually be used to help develop a curriculum for teaching African American women and their families to swim. “I have collected a lot of data from African American mothers in the Twin Cities, and across the country, who have talked very openly about their swim experiences and their children’s experiences,” she explains. “The goal is to get parents and kids into the water and give them the confidence to swim safely. If parents aren’t onboard, it’s hard to get the kids to do something.”
Ultimately, Rakhu plans to create a swim school that is culturally relevant and trauma informed, meaning the curriculum and teaching style would focus on overcoming many of the barriers to swimming that African Americans face. Rakhu is also a recent recipient of the FINNOVATION fellowship. Supported by the Bush Foundation, the fellowship is an immersive program that supports social entrepreneurs with building skills and to develop their business ideas.
“Swimming is such a great way to maintain your health or come back from an injury; and knowing how to swim could save your life or your child’s life,” she says. “We need to address the barriers to swimming so more people can enjoy it safely.”
Stephanie Grace, a PhD student in the School of Kinesiology, is the first author of the paper “Exploring Associations Between Household Chaos and Child Health Behaviors in Rural Families,” which recently got accepted to the American Journal of Health Behavior. The paper will be published in vol. 26 (Feb issue no. 1, 2022). Daheia Barr-Anderson, PhD, associate professor in the School of Kinesiology and director of the Behavioral Physical Activity Laboratory (BPAL), and Jayne Fulkerson, PhD, a professor in the School of Nursing, are co-authors.
The paper investigates the relationship between household chaos, which is characterized by noise, crowding, and disorganization, with child physical activity, sedentary behavior, and screen-time. A significant and positive association was found between household chaos and child screen-time. Yet more exploration is needed regarding household chaos and other child health behaviors, including child physical activity and sedentary behavior.
The manuscript explores how COVID-19’s mandatory stay-at-home order from March to May 2020 influenced physical activity (PA) and recreational screen time (RST) in an ethnically/racially, socioeconomically diverse sample of emerging adults. Using data from Project EAT (Eating and Activity over Time), 218 adults were queried on their PA and RST behavior in 2018 and again in 2020 during the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. Overall, moderate-to-vigorous (MVPA) and total PA decreased, and RST increased. Specifically, individuals who perceived their neighborhood as unsafe during the day and night reported 2.8 fewer hours of total PA and over 4 more hours of RST, respectively, than those who perceived their neighborhood as safe. Compared to Whites, Blacks or African Americans and Asian Americans reported 3.16 and 2.37 fewer hours of total PA. Additionally, Asian Americans reported almost 5 hours more RST than Whites. Low SES (Socioeconomic Status) was associated with 4.04 fewer hours of total PA compared to high SES. Prior to COVID-19, there were already differences in PA and RST by ethnicity/race and SES, and these disparities were magnified during COVID.
Daheia Barr-Anderson, PhD, associate professor in the School of Kinesiology and director of the Behavioral Physical Activity Laboratory (BPAL), presented “Physical Activity and Obesity: Innovative Strategies for Black Girls and Women” as a part of Arizona State University’s seminar series entitled, TRANSCEND. The series was focused on maternal child health and childhood obesity prevention. Barr-Anderson’s presentation specifically looked at physical activity interventions for Black females, while also discussing her two current projects, YogaMoves and Mini-ME.
Complementary and integrative health approaches are used to prevent mental and behavioral disorders. To help eliminate mental health disparities, researchers must conduct robust studies that include the input of diverse communities.
Featuring: Daheia Barr-Anderson, Gail Parker, Jennifer Webb, and Ericka Jones
In the U.S., yoga has become increasingly popular in recent years. Although heavily westernized and white-washed, yoga’s origins not only trace back to India, but this sacred practice has African roots. For centuries, Black people have faced marginalization, discrimination, and social injustice in the U.S. The unjustified deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and countless other Black lives have created a level of racial and social trauma that few other communities have experienced. Coupled with the physical, mental, financial, and social disparities that exist in the Black community, a collective healing is needed. Many people are drawn to a yoga mat as a means to address imbalance or heal trauma experienced in their lives. Although in the U.S., yoga has the reputation of attracting college-educated, white populations and can be exclusionary to BIPOC communities, yoga has become increasingly popular among Blacks with the growth of Afrocentric yoga (i.e., focusing on Black or African culture), establishment of Black yoga organizations (i.e., Black Yoga Teachers Alliance), and expansion of social media presence of Black yoga practitioners. In this panel discussion, Black researchers and yoga instructors will discuss yoga in the Black community: why is it important to help reclaim health, how can it be used to address trauma and healing in the Black community, and what has been the impact of COVID-19. Register for this event through Zoom.
Researchers from the School of Kinesiology submitted their various work to be displayed in the 2021 CEHD Research Day poster presentation. Take a moment to listen to their presentations and view their posters!
The virtual CEHD Research Day will take place Tuesday, March 23, including presentations from the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, and World’s Challenge Challenge. Come and support CEHD faculty, staff, and students as they showcase the impact of their research.
Author(s): J. Oh, A. Mahnan, J. Xu, J. Holst-Wolf, J. Konczak
Proprioceptive signals, the perception of body position and movement in space, are essential for the control of movement. Adult neurological diseases such as stroke or dystonia are associated with proprioceptive deficits. Current clinical practice to assess these deficits relies mainly on subjective clinical impression. Obtaining objective measures of proprioceptive function is uncommon, because the available assessment methods rely on specialized equipment that require extra expertise and/or they are very time-consuming. We here present a new system that conveniently and objectively measures finger position sense by implementing a psychophysical threshold hunting method. The system consists of a software application and a custom-built adjustable stand to mount tablets of different dimensions that run the application. The user places one’s hand with the index finger extended on the base of the stand. The tablet is positioned over the hand. The tablet display is dissected into two colored sectors. Assessment requires the user to judge under which area the finger is located (“left” or “right”). Based on the response, a Bayesian inference adaptive algorithm calculates the new display configuration for a subsequent trial. Testing lasts less than 5 minutes and after 50 trials the application computes the user’s perceived finger position.
Author(s): Divya Bhaskaran,Naveen Elangovan, Arash Mahnan, Jinseok Oh, Peter J. Watson, Jürgen Konczak
Objectives: Spasmodic Dysphonia (SD) is a focal dystonia that causes voice breaks and a strained-strangled voice quality. Previously, a one-time administration of vibro-tactile stimulation (VTS) to the larynx improved speech quality in 69% of the participants with SD. This ongoing clinical trial examines the prolonged effect of laryngeal VTS in SD. We here report initial data of 7 participants with adductor SD who applied VTS at-home for 4 weeks.
Methods: Participants, randomly assigned to two groups, received VTS either at 100Hz or 40Hz. Smoothed cepstral peak prominence (CPPS), a marker of voice quality was obtained. The vocal effort for speaking the voiced sentences on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being maximal vocal effort, was examined. Change in variables (ΔCPPS, ΔVocal effort) between pretest and post-test was derived. A positive ΔCPPS > 2db indicates a meaningful improvement in voice quality. A negative ΔVocal effort rating indicates lesser effort to speak.
Conclusion: There is initial evidence that 40 Hz VTS assumed to stimulate only tactile mechanoreceptors above the voice box may lead to positive changes in the voice quality in SD. Other markers of voice quality are still under analysis and will provide a more comprehensive assessment of therapeutic effectiveness.
Author(s): Alec M. Basten, Christiana J. Raymond-Pope, Kyle A. Dalske, Sarah M. Greising
Oxidative metabolism is essential for the basic maintenance and contractile processes of skeletal muscle. It is likely that in traumatic muscle injuries, oxidative metabolism is disrupted and leads to compromised contractile function and systemic maladaptation. Volumetric muscle loss (VML) injury is traumatic injury that causes an irrecoverable loss in function and lifelong disability. In this study, we first sought to systematically review chronic oxidative comorbidities following VML, using PRISMA guidelines. We evaluated 140 studies, only 7 met our inclusion criteria. Results suggest that myofibers remaining following VML adopt a slower, more oxidative phenotype but lack the subsequent increase in capillarity that is expected in oxidative myofibers. Second, we evaluated how VML injury chronically impairs the capillarity and oxidative capacity of skeletal muscle. Mice underwent a sham procedure or a full-thickness multi-muscle VML injury and were evaluated at one- and two months post-injury. Strength was decreased and capillary to fiber ratios were significantly disrupted following VML. Combined, data from our studies suggest that oxidative maladies following VML exist but there is currently limited work aimed to characterize and/or address metabolic health following VML.
Author(s): Beth Lewis, Katie Schuver, and Shira Dunsiger
Only 19% of women and 26% of men meet the USDHHS physical activity (PA) recommendations despite the numerous health benefits associated with PA. High intensity interval training (HIIT), which consists of short bursts of high-intensity PA followed by recovery or light PA, potentially addresses the time barrier associated with PA adherence. The purpose of this pilot study was to examine the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a home-based HIIT intervention on PA adherence among low active adults. Participants (n=47) were randomly assigned to a home-based HIIT intervention or wait-list control lasting 12 weeks. Participants in the HIIT intervention received eight telephone calls designed to increase PA adherence by utilizing strategies based on Self-Determination Theory. Participants in the HIIT intervention increased their vigorous intensity PA from 3.9 minutes per week at baseline to 40.0 minutes at six weeks and 61.8 minutes at 12 weeks, which met the study’s vigorous intensity goal of 60 minutes of HIIT per week and was significantly more minutes/week than the wait list control at six weeks. This study provides evidence for feasibility and possible efficacy of a home-based HIIT intervention; however, additional studies are needed with larger samples sizes to confirm efficacy of home-based HIIT interventions.
Author(s): Brooke E. Wagner, Amanda L. Folk, Samantha L. Hahn, Daheia J. Barr-Anderson, Nicole Larson, and Dianne Neumark-Sztainer
Understanding how screen time behaviors changed during the COVID-19 pandemic is important to inform the design of health promotion interventions. The purpose of this study was to quantify and describe changes in recreational screen time from 2018 to 2020 among a diverse sample of emerging adults. Participants (n=716) reported their average weekly recreational screen time in 2018 and again during the pandemic in 2020. Additionally, participants qualitatively reported how events related to COVID-19 had influenced their screen time. Weekly recreational screen time increased from 25.9±11.9 hours in 2018 to 28.5±11.6 hours during COVID-19 (p<0.001). The form of screen time most commonly reported to increase was TV shows and streaming services (n=233). Commonly reported reasons for changes in screen time were boredom (n=112) and a desire to connect with others (n=52). Some participants reported trying to reduce screen time because of its negative impact on their mental health (n=32). Findings suggest that screen time and mental health may be intertwined during the pandemic as it may lead to poorer mental health for some, while promoting connectedness for others. Health professionals and public health messaging could promote specific forms for screen time to encourage social connection during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
