Belly Mass in Walking Women: Effects of Load on Kinematics

June 1, 2007 - Congratulations to Dr. Marcie Myers who has received funding via the National Insititues of Health-National Institutes for Child Health and Human Development (NIH-NICHD) as well a 3M Large grant for her Pilot Study, "Belly Mass in Walking Women: Effects of Load on Kinematics." Dr. Myers and undergraduate research assistants Christine Hayes, Jessica McCafferty, Andrea Hokanson and Sarah Meissner conducted research during the summer of 2007. The goal of the project is to determine how the amount of mass carried around a woman’s abdominal area (belly) affects her patterns of movement (gait kinematics) and caloric costs (energetics) during walking at different speeds. Although it is known that extra mass carried on the torso and limbs will increase the metabolic cost of walking, and that pregnant and obese women exhibit altered gait, there has not been a systematic study of how "belly mass" per se induces changes in the kinematics and costs of walking. Understanding how the walking task is perturbed by belly loading is an essential step toward developing individualized exercise prescriptions that could increase exercise treatment compliance in affected women.

Read Professor Myers' article, SheWalking, originally published in Colleagues, the Teaching and Learning Network's Community Development Newsletter.