Our Crowdfunding Groups
Our Why
The mission of OSU Tactical Fitness and Nutrition Lab is to improve the health, fitness, and occupational performance of tactical athletes (i.e., firefighters, law enforcement officers, military personnel) through research, teaching, and outreach. Basically, we serve those who serve us. Little do many realize that obesity, heart disease, and cancer kill more first responders than among the general population and that these are the leading killers of firefighters in the line of duty. Some of that is due to the nature of their job, but studies show the majority of deaths could be prevented by public health fitness and nutrition interventions. We do just that.
Tactical populations are not only our community heroes, but also my family and closest friends. I am a family member to numerous firefighters, law enforcement officers, and military personnel, as well as an active duty Army wife for 9 years before we moved to OSU. They have all changed my world, so it's my turn to change theirs!
The How
Student research projects in our lab serve local, state, and national tactical populations. Some recent projects include creating a 16-week nutrition education program and a 16-week basic cooking skills program for OSU ROTC, investigating the connection between dietary quality and mental health status of wild land firefighters, documenting the fire station food environment and creating a program to ensure the environment supports healthy habits, performing screenings on and designing physical training programs for local first responders and ROTC cadets, and creating an online 12-week wellness challenge program (the Fittest Force Challenge), to name a few. Funding will go to continuing to create programs to serve, and even save, those who serve us.
How You Can Help?
Your donation makes more of these projects possible. By supporting these projects, you are not only serving our community heroes, but also providing invaluable learning opportunities for future health professionals (doctors, PAs, dietitians, strength and conditioning coaches, to name a few). We plan to divide the funds raised among graduate and undergraduate researchers in our lab to complete as many projects with tactical populations in the Stillwater and Central/ North Central OK region as possible.
Want to See Some of What We Do?
Check us out on:
A gift of $10 fills fresh fruit bowls in a fire or police station. This change could lead to increased fruit intake and lowered risk of chronic disease over time.
A gift of $15 helps us determine the energy needs of tactical personnel during rest or following job duties to ensure that they are properly fueled to perform.
A gift of $50 covers the food needed to provide cooking classes to ROTC cadets. These classes ensure that they are able to properly fuel their years of service.
A gift of $200 or more helps to purchase physical training and assessment equipment for our mobile TFAN lab.
A gift of $1000 could be enough to fund one student's entire public health nutrition or physical training study with a tactical group.