Equipment/Software Project Healthy Body Weight Initiative Chris Gero

Obesity Epidemic More than 1/3 of U.S. adults are obese Approximately 17% of kids and teens age 2-19 are obese

Future Profession As a future Health and Physical Education teacher, I am hoping to educate both students and parents about the dangers and risks of obesity, and encourage them to lead healthy, active lifestyles.

Bioelectric Impedance Analysis (BIA) Scale that estimates fat free body mass and body fat percentage Upside: inexpensive Downside: questionable accuracy

Skin Fold Caliper Pinch fat with fingers Measure the thickness with skin fold caliper Compare it on a chart with age and gender to get body fat percentage

Hydrostatic Weighing Considered to be one of the most accurate ways of measuring body mass However, test take about 30 minutes and is rather expensive, as well as impractical

DEXA Scan Becoming the new Gold standard in measuring body mass Uses low dose x-rays so it is safe Also, impractical and rather expensive

Nutritionist Pro Diet Analysis Software that could be used to keep track of students diets This is useful because students need to be reminded that a healthy diet needs to accompany an exercise regimen

Conclusion These pieces of equipment and software would make it easy to measure and track students body mass The nutrition analysis software would track the students diets’ and show them what is good and what needs to be changed

Why approve this? The younger generations are the future of our world and need to be taught that their health is important, because without it they can not do anything else. These pieces of equipment and software will help teach the students about their own body mass and diets, which is the first step in the right direction.