Dr. Steve Blair delivered the 9th Annual Norman Fries Distinguished Lecture at Georgia Southern University entitled "Physical Inactivity: The Biggest Public Health Problem of the 21st Century," September 29, 2009. The campus-wide event was attended by faculty, students and community members.
Dr. Blair is a professor in the Departments of Exercise Science and Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. Blair focuses his research on the associations between lifestyle and health, with a specific emphasis on exercise, physical fitness, body composition and chronic disease. Blair is a past president of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity, and the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education. He has received awards from many professional associations, including a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health, ACSM Honor Award, and the Robert Levy Lecture and Population Science Research Awards from the American Heart Association. Blair is also one of the few individuals outside the U.S. Public Health Service to be awarded the Surgeon General's Medallion.
The Norman Fries Distinguished Lectureship Series began in 2001. It is funded by an endowment in honor of the late Norman Fries, who was the founder of Claxton Poultry. In his more than 50 years in business, Fries built the company from a one-man operation into one of the nation's largest poultry production plants. Dean Charles Hardy of the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health was the host of the Lectureship Series this year. Past Fries Lectures include James Humes, Ryals Chair of Leadership, University of Southern Colorado, David Oreck, Founder and CEO of Oreck Vacuums, Mark Mathabane, South African apartheid author and lecturer, Jon Vollmer, Executive Vice President of Health Management Association, Inc., James Kennedy, Director of NASA, Kennedy Space Center, Charles Morris, President and CEO, Morris Multimedia, Inc., Bert Roughton, Jr., Managing Editor/Print Edition, Atlanta Journal Constitution, and Gordon Wood, Author, Historian.
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