[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Bar-Or,-Oded.jpg” caption=”Oded Bar-Or”]A delegation from the Jozef Pilsudski Academy of Physical Education in Warsaw, Poland will visit McMaster University this week to honour Oded Bar-Or, a professor emeritus in pediatrics and renowned expert in sport medicine and childhood obesity.

The academy is granting Bar-Or an honorary degree in recognition of his lifetime work in the area of children and exercise.
The delegation will include Andrzej Wit, past president of the academy. The presentation will take place on Thursday, Dec. 1 at 1:30 p.m. in the McMaster DeGroote School of Business Rm. 505.

The honorary degree is the latest in a host of special honours Bar-Or has received in recent months including:

• The 2005 Honour Award from the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology, recognizing significant achievements in the field of exercise physiology;
• An honorary degree from Brock University for his contributions in pediatrics;
• The Thomas E. Shaffer Award for lifelong contributions to the field of pediatric sport medicine, from the American Academy of Pediatrics' (AAP) Council on Sport Medicine and Fitness;
• The naming of an Oded Bar-Or Award to be presented annually by the AAP to the best sports medicine or healthy active living presentation at the council's abstract session during the academy's national conference.

Bar-Or has been making significant contributions in the field of sports medicine for nearly four decades. Before joining McMaster in 1981, he worked at Pennsylvania State University and in Israel.

At McMaster, he has become an expert in childhood obesity. He has been the director of the Children's Exercise and Nutrition Centre located at Chedoke Hospital from its inception in 1983 to its current status as an international training centre for researchers.

He was a visionary when he initially turned his attention to overweight children, as few shared his concern for the rising epidemic. He developed a multi-disciplinary team of researchers who created and delivered individual nutrition and physical activity programs for children. As well, he has spearheaded many research projects studying obesity in childhood and how to combat its growing prevalence.

Bar-Or retired from McMaster as a professor in 2003.