Canadian Obesity Network Boot Camp Rebooted

Regular readers of these pages may recall previous posts on the Annual 10-day Obesity Bootcamps organised by the Canadian Obesity Network for young researchers and professionals from across Canada.

This event, hosted in close collaboration with the University of Laval is now in its 5th year (the next camp is in August) and has already trained over 100 of Canada’s brightest students and young professionals working in areas related to obesity as diverse as molecular genetics and cell biology to physical activity and nutrition, urban planning and psychology and even pediatric endocrinology and bariatric surgery.

In addition, last year”s Boot Camp also hosted participants from Australia, US, UK, Ireland, Italy and Mexico.

Today, in a prequel to the upcoming 2nd Canadian Obesity Student Meeting, I am attending a reunion of Boot Camp alumni from across the country co-hosted by the University of Ottawa.

The event with the challenging title “Propelling Knowledge to Action” will feature a number of guest speakers including the Ottawa journalist Elizabeth Payne, Teresa Scassa, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Information Law at the University of Ottawa, Sylvie Stachenko, Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta, Irving Gold, VP Governmental Relations and External Affairs for the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada and former Chair of the Canadian Obesity Network’s Board of Directors, Brad Hussey, the Network’s Communication Officer, and Travis Saunders, a PhD Student and co-author of the obesity blog Obesity Panacea.

The main goal of this event is to help reestablish ties and strengthen this network of exceptionally bright and promising obesity researchers and young professionals, who are excited and proud to call themselves the “Bootcampers”.

Many members of this tightly knit network currently hold post-docs, have joined university and college faculties, NGOs, government, or industry and are carrying forth the Network’s message that the obesity epidemic can only be addressed when all of society works together.

AMS
Ottawa, Ontario

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