Transdisciplinary Childhood Obesity Prevention

Program Description

The Transdisciplinary Childhood Obesity Prevention (T.O.P.) graduate certificate program offered through South Dakota State University (SDSU) and the University of Nebraska Lincoln (UNL) is a graduate certificate program with experiential learning opportunities addressing childhood obesity. This program is unique and provides expertise in a job market that is desperate for trained health professionals in the prevention of childhood obesity. The program will prepare students to conduct research on the behavioral, social, biological, and environmental causes of childhood obesity. Students will develop skills required to implement evidence based transdisciplinary approaches to prevention. Nutrition, Exercise Science, Health Promotion, Extension, Early Childhood Education, Nursing, and Statistics faculty are collaborating to implement the T.O.P. graduate certificate program.

Students will graduate with a Masters or Doctoral degree from their respective college and will obtain a T.O.P. program certificate upon completion of their degree, T.O.P. specific courses, experiential learning project, research requirements, culminating exams, and thesis or dissertation. A limited number of funded graduate assistant positions are available to qualified applicants. Application to the T.O.P. program requires completion of the T.O.P. application. The SDSU/UNL T.O.P. graduate program is supported by the National Research Initiative Grant no. 2011-67002-30202 from the Food and Agriculture Division of Nutrition.