Seminar Series Open to Faculty & Staff
UW Nutritional Sciences invites you to attend its autumn 2014 seminar series: Sustainable Food and Nutrition Security. Lectures occur weekly throughout the quarter on Thursday afternoons, 12:30-1:20 p.m., in Alder Commons Auditorium/104. All UW students, faculty, and staff are welcome to attend!
What does the theme for the quarter actually mean?
Sustainable food and nutrition security is a phrase that reflects our growing concerns about the future of food systems. Having enough safe and nutritious food is vital for personal and public health. However, global food systems are challenged by climate change and overuse of land, water, and energy. The UW is leading the way in responding to these challenges by reducing food miles, promoting recycling, and minimizing food waste and this seminar series will connect the audience to the ways in which others are responding to these challenges at the state and global levels.
What was the inspiration for the seminar series?
The inspiration for this seminar series came from the White House Global Climate Change Initiative and from comparable efforts by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) to link sustainable agriculture to biodiversity, nutrition, and health. Jointly organized by FAO and WHO, the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) takes place in Rome this November and will focus on how to produce enough quality food to feed a worldwide population of more than 9 billion people by 2050. Throughout the autumn seminar series, UW Nutritional Sciences will also seek to link sustainable agriculture to biodiversity, nutrition, and health by having dialogues on topics such as agroecology, carbon footprint of foods, food and nutrition policy and practice, climate-resilient crops, and industry approaches to responsible nutrition.
What are we most proud of/excited about?
We are very proud that as a result of the seminar series’ interdisciplinary food-related theme, students from 32 different majors have registered for this class! We also are excited to make the series available to the broader campus community and hope that by holding it in Alder Commons, more guests will be able to join us for one or more lectures.
What do you hope students and guests will get out of attending this seminar series?
We hope that attendees will recognize how complex food systems really are and how vulnerable the systems—and, therefore, we humans—are to disruptions. We also hope the seminar series encourages people to think more about their everyday food choices. We may not have the foods we enjoy for much longer, so what does the future of nutrition look like? What will be the food choices of tomorrow and what impact will they have on health?
If everyone leaves our lectures having learned a little more about how the many challenges to global food systems could impact them both directly and indirectly and then uses that new knowledge to make some different choices in their daily lives, we will feel that it was a success.
Thank you to Nutritional Sciences for making this available to all faculty and staff. This is a perfect opportunity to hear from experts on important topics. You can learn about food systems while you eat your lunch! For details on specific topics and the schedule, visit The Whole U event calendar or the seminar series schedule.
Dr. Adam Drewnowski is a world-renowned leader in the prevention and treatment of obesity. He is professor of Epidemiology and the director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition at the School of Public Health. He is also the director of the University of Washington Center for Obesity Research, which addresses the environmental, social and economic aspects of the obesity epidemic. Dr. Drewnowski is adjunct professor of medicine and is a joint member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.