One faculty member and several current and former students from the Arkansas Tech University Department of Health and Physical Education will make cameo appearances in an upcoming HBO documentary.
Dr. J.J. Mayo, associate professor of health and physical education, was with several of his wellness science students from Arkansas Tech one day in fall 2010 as they assisted in employee wellness testing at Nabholz Construction in Conway.
That kind of hands-on experience is something that Mayo’s wellness science students are exposed to every semester, but the presence of a film crew from HBO made it a far from ordinary day.
Now the footage captured that day will appear in “The Weight of the Nation,” a four-part series about the obesity epidemic in the United States that will begin showing on HBO in mid-May.
The film is presented by the Institute of Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health in partnership with the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation and Kaiser Permanente.
“The part that features Nabholz shows the importance of a wellness program in the fight against obesity,” said Mayo, who is in his second year as a member of the Arkansas Tech faculty. “It also demonstrates how valuable it is to have a trained professional on the ground, working one-on-one with employees to improve their health.”
The segment that will include cameo appearances by individuals from Arkansas Tech is in the fourth part in the series. It is entitled “Challenges,” and it will first air on HBO from 9:10-10:15 p.m. on Tuesday, May 15.
Mayo and his wife, Jayme, have been invited to attend a premiere event for the documentary on April 16 in Nashville, Tenn. Jayme is a physician assistant and wellness coordinator for Nabholz.
Click here to learn more about the HBO documentary “The Weight of the Nation.”
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