Cecile Yancu

Cecile N. Yancu

Personal Professional Mission

To work towards eliminating prejudice and/or discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, age, national origin, religious beliefs, health conditions, disability, physical attributes i.e., body weight, family-tie preferences or sexual orientation by educating others to appreciate the value of social diversity.

Personal Fitness

            Briefly, I spent the first 20-some years of my life fluctuating between being overweight and obesity.  I came to fitness in my mid-40s with the realization that I was headed down the same path towards serious heart disease as both my parents and grandparents travelled.  It began simply with exercising several times a week to get into a smaller jean-size and better shape (truthfully, in that order).  Today, exercise and healthy eating are a regular part of my daily routine; I cross-train, combining spin, group-fitness, weight-training, running, power-walking and of course, yoga and Pilates.  I began the running last year.  And, what I am probably most proud of is that this year I completed two half-marathons.  Not bad for the formerly fat kid on the block!

            Despite a heavy teaching and research load at WSSU, I teach four classes a week at the local YMCA, including a class that I developed specifically for the YMCA that I call Rockalates.  The Rockalates classes fill a gap in that they are designed as an advanced combination of abdominal work and Pilates done to classic rock music.  In addition to the Rockalates, I teach 2 all-level classes weekly.  I’ve been teaching Pilates for 3 years.  Last year my supervisor asked me to develop a beginner yoga class to fill a particular time slot.  As time progressed I found that the members who attended the yoga class wanted something a bit different from the usual Hatha-style that the other instructors teach.  With this in mind I now teach this as an Ashtanga-style class.     

Obesity and Related Body-Weight Disorders.

            As for my scholarly work, most recently I have received NIH funding to complete a pilot study of the relationship among obesity, chronic daily stress, poor coping strategies, and racial/ethnic health disparities.  As principal investigator on this project, I strongly believe that this study will lay the foundation for a new theoretical approach to understanding obesity and other weight-related issues (e.g., anorexia) as eating disorders that are symptomatic of poor coping skills rather than distinct disease endpoints in and of themselves.   Underlying this research is an observation that despite years of promoting healthy eating habits and more exercise as a way to control obesity, humans are getting fatter and chronic diseases related to excess body weight are on the rise and concomitantly driving up health care costs.