Purdue University will open a new center on nutrition education and obesity education.
The regional center is one of four being funded by a $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The research center is expected to serve 12 states, reaching from the Dakotas down to Missouri and east to Ohio.
Purdue University professor of nutrition policy Dennis Savaiano is leading the center's efforts.
He said poverty and obesity rates tend to be closely associated with one another, so the center will aim to engage impoverished communities to find more sustainable models of obesity prevention.
"The kinds of habits we need to promote would include much more consumption of fruits and vegetables, more lower calorie options, and combined with that, opportunities for exercise — the opportunity to bicycle or walk to work, the opportunity at work to take a walk at lunch," he said.
Savaiano also says that the center's research could make food assistance programs more effective.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, Indiana is the ninth most obese state in the nation.