What are you currently working on?
Dr. Michelle Mottola Professor (Joint Appointment with Kinesiology) More about her research https://bit.ly/MottolaInfo Contact Info mmottola@uwo.ca (519) 661-2111 ext. 85480
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“We're looking at the best strategy for preventing excessive pregnancy-related weight gain and gestational diabetes for individuals who are at high risk for getting diabetes during pregnancy. So according to Diabetes Canada, this includes individuals who identify as African, Asian, Hispanic, indigenous, or South Asian. We're trying to devise a methodological template that we can use to assist these high-risk ethno-culturally marginalized populations for gestational diabetes prevention. In order to do that, the strategies are focused on nutrition and physical activity, which are the components which can reduce gestational diabetes risk. The population that we're working with right now is pregnant Arab individuals, and they're going to be assisting us in co-designing participatory research that incorporates their culture, their religious, and spiritual beliefs into a healthy nutrition and physical activity strategy. Once we get this template devised, then we can apply it to other high-risk groups that I mentioned. We’d like to work with other community members in London and hopefully beyond to develop other healthy lifestyle strategies that would also assist in these pregnant high-risk populations to reduce diabetes risk and excessive weight gain during pregnancy.”
“That’s what makes research exciting, because it’s never a dead end.” What are some of your future research goals?
“Our team is in the process of developing an international center for maternal and child lifestyle development and learning. With our core team, we are going to be examining important facilitators and barriers to a healthy lifestyle within the Western research community and affiliates, specifically focusing on pregnant individuals so that we can help them adopt and maintain a healthy lifestyle during and after pregnancy. The reason why this is important is because these healthy maternal lifestyles can be passed down through fetal development. What she does during pregnancy is important, but she's also a role model for the infant, the toddler, the child, her family. If we can assist individually within the family to start a healthy lifestyle, then you can see there how there might be kind of a snowball effect with this. It will help to prevent diseases such as diabetes that I've mentioned, but also obesity and heart disease.” 30
