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Center helps improve health
By Matt Poston
Staff
Writer
Since its inception in April of 1999, the A.H.
Ismail Center for Health, Exercise, and Nutrition has served not only
the Purdue community, but also the healthcare community in general.
The mission of the Ismail Center is threefold:
service, education, and research, says Cody Sipe, director of the Ismail
Center.
"Our service is to the Purdue and Lafayette/West
Lafayette communities as we try to provide not only a place where they
can exercise but opportunities to enhance their health, fitness, and
overall quality of life in other ways," says Sipe.
The Ismail Center, which is run jointly by the
department of health, kinesiology, and leisure studies in the School
of Liberal Arts and the department of foods and nutrition in the School
of Consumer and Family Sciences, accomplishes these goals by offering
educational sessions, individual or group programs, blood draws and
health screenings to members of the Adult Fitness Program. The center’s
namesake, Dr. A.H. Ismail, created the program.
"Dr. Ismail started the program in 1962, to
recruit adults for research," said Mindy Herzog, assistant director
of the center. Herzog said other benefits that the program members receive
are personal attention from trainers and an exercise program tailored
to suit each individual's needs.
Dr. Ismail continued to work with his project until
his death in 1984. Since his death, membership in the Adult Fitness
Program has risen to approximately 700 members.
Education also plays a vital role in the center.
According to Sipe, it provides students a "real life" experience
in their field of study.
"The educational component revolves around
students within the department of health, kinesiology, and leisure studies
and the department of foods and nutrition working in the center to put
into practice what they are learning in class," says Sipe.
Sipe also said that even students who were not
employed by the center might be required by their classes to participate
in shadowing activities to fulfill requirements for their course, while
still others may have lab time to work on individual or group projects
for the center or its members.
The third mission of the Ismail Center is research.
"Since the Ismail Center is really still in
its infancy, the exact focus and development of research is just getting
off the ground," said Sipe. "Our faculty is currently seeking
out new and exciting ways that we can collaborate with one another to
fulfill this mission," he said.
Sipe said that the primary focus of the Ismail
Center would be research in adult health and fitness, but researchers
interested in other topics are more than welcome to use the center’s
facilities.
Examples of past research in the facility range
from resistance training in elderly women, the effects of carbohydrate
loading and supplementation on aerobic performance in female runners
and metabolic studies involving college students, said Sipe.
But the main focus of the Ismail Center is to improve
the quality of life for its participants, like the late Dr. Ismail.
"We are not only delivering the message that
exercise is important for the health and well-being of adults, but we're
also providing an appropriate environment for people to implement that
message," said Sipe "People with little or no exercise experience can
be very intimidated by starting an exercise program or joining a gym.
We are dedicated to helping those individuals make appropriate lifestyle
changes to improve their health and fitness in a non-threatening and
supportive environment."
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