Spotlight on nutrition and physical activity at conference

2 May 2013

Spotlight on nutrition and physical activity at national conference

New Zealand and Australian nutrition and physical activity experts will gather in Rotorua on 8 and 9 May 2013 to discuss the linked public health challenges of ways to improve our food supply and getting New Zealanders up and moving.

The conference, with the theme “It Starts With Us: Ma Mātau E Timata”, is hosted by Agencies for Nutrition Action (ANA), a national body committed to improving nutrition and physical activity in Aotearoa.

Keynote speakers include:

• Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, who will be speaking on the implications of what parents eat, on their children’s health. Professor Sir Peter, one of New Zealand’s best-known scientists, is science advisor to the Prime Minister and founding director of the Auckland-based Liggins Institute.

• Dr Teuila Percival, who will be speaking on nutrition challenges & opportunities for improving health in Pacific people. She is Consultant Paediatrician at KidzFirst Children’s Hospital in South Auckland and a senior lecturer and Director of the Pacific Health Section at the School of Population Health, University of Auckland. Her particular interests are in Pacific peoples’ health, maternal and child health, child abuse and community paediatrics.

• Associate Professor Rachael Taylor, who will be speaking on early life approaches to obesity prevention. She is a researcher at the Edgar National Centre for Diabetes and Obesity Research, University of Otago. She became the inaugural Karitane Fellow in Early Childhood Obesity following a successful Leading Thinkers campaign. Her work centres around developing effective solutions for the prevention and management of childhood overweight from birth to adolescence.

Other keynote speakers include leading Australian academic and social nutritionist Associate Professor Danielle Gallegos speaking on food literacy, Australian physical activity and public health expert Professor Adrian Bauman discussing why physical activity is the ‘Cinderella’ of risk factors, and Professor Boyd Swinburn speaking on the future for obesity prevention in New Zealand with a focus on ‘Who could we follow and where could we lead?’.

ENDS

© Scoop Media