Seminar - October 2020

diet

The Nutritional Ecology of Obesity

Professor David Raubenheimer, Leonard P Ullmann Chair in Nutritional Ecology and Nutrition Theme Leader of the Charles Perkins Centre, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney

For the Food Values Research Group's October 2020 seminar, we are pleased to welcome Prof David Raubenheimer.

In this seminar I will address the question of why is it that our species, with unprecedented privilege in terms of science and technology, fails so badly in something as fundamental as eating a healthy diet, whereas other species succeed using raw biology alone. I will use examples from my own research examining the mechanisms of diet selection in non-human animals, both in the lab and the wild. This work shows that the key to healthy eating in species as diverse as insects to apes is nutrient specific appetites which interact to ensure that the diet is sufficient and balanced with respect to nutrient requirements. I then demonstrate that humans too have nutrient specific appetites, and show how the interaction of these with industrial food environments can help explain poor dietary outcomes such as obesity.

When: Thursday 29th October, 11-12 PM

Where: Online. Please RSVP to foodresearch@adelaide.edu.au

Prof David Raubenheimer is a researcher within the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney. He is also Chair of the Sydney Food and Nutrition Network. David is a leading expert in nutritional ecology: the discipline that studies how nutrition-related aspects of an animal's environment interact with its biology to determine health and fitness outcomes. His approach is comparative, using ecological and evolutionary diversity to understand these interactions.

Tagged in event, presentation, nutrition, healthy diets