Visiting C-PAN at Deakin University, Melbourne Australia

This week I am a guest at the Behavioural Epidemiology group of the Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research (C-PAN; please see www.deakin.edu.au/hmnbs/cpan/be.php), Deakin University, Melbourne Australia. This group really does work of great interest to ring behavioural nutrition and physical activity research a few steps further. In their work on explaining and promoting healthful nutrition and physical activity behaviours, they have adopted a social ecological perspective, and a main focus is on social and physical environmental determinants of these behaviours. Socio-economic differences in these behaviours is another topic that they excel in. Their studies include children and adults, observational and intervention studies. Productive as they are, they appear rather relaxed, taking plenty of time to discuss their work, but also making sure that I am well-fed and that I have a bike during my stay to attend to my cycling addiction. The groups is led by professor David Crawford and Drs. Jo Salmon, Kylie Ball and Anna Timperio. You should check out their work, for example via pubmed (see www.ncbi.nlm.gov/sites/entrez/ ).
Although you see quite some cyclists in Melbourne, I suspect that these are the really dedicated few. The cycling infrastructure is not that good. There are some very nice bike routes, especially the main Yarra trail, along the Yarra river, but cycling for transport is something else. Not many designated bike lanes, and if you do encounter one, they are often used to park cars…See http://www.whitehat.com.au/Melbourne/Activities/Cycling.asp and http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/info.cfm?top=140&pa=1196&pg=1200 for more information on cycling in Melbourne and the Melbourne city bike plan.