KARACHI: Pakistan Nutrition and Dietetic Society (PNDS) organized its 14th Annual General Body Meeting (AGBM) and Elections of Executive committee for the term of 2017-2019 recently at Beach Luxury Hotel, Karachi. More than 130 participants attended the session including dietitians/nutritionists/dietetic students from various renowned institutes/hospitals/organizations in Karachi as well as PNDS Chapters core committee team members from Lahore, Islamabad & Faisalabad. Nutrition Society UK endorsed the scientitic session being a collaborator of PNDS.
At AGBM meeting Ms. Fayza Khan started the program with her welcome note, then General Sect. PNDS Rabia Anwer, shared the activities of PNDS of last year with the members, Treasure presented the financial report of PNDS then elections for executive committee were held followed by Lunch.
Dr. Romaina Iqbal,Associate Professor of Nutrition, Agha Khan University elaborated her talk on “To eat or not to eat: How do I decide?? She explained the audience about how to implement Evidence Based nutrition into practice, how to critically analyze research studies on various foods and how to recommend foods to be taken in daily life or in certain health conditions to their clients. She also highlighted the important role of media in guiding/misguiding public on large scale on various Food, nutrition and health related matters. She recommended that Media should invite/consult qualified nutrition and health professionals for delivering Nutrition advice for masses instead of asking Nutrition related matters from Herbalists, cooking experts, chefs, naturopaths as communicating one single wrong message about food to eat or not to eat impact public health on large scale.
Second speaker was Dr Vimal Karani, Assistant Professor in Nutrigenetics,at Reading University, UK on behalf of Nutrition Society UK gave a video conference session on ‘Nutrigenetics and Personalised Nutrition in developing countries’. His lecture outlined the current scenario of nutrigenetics and nutrigenomics research in developed and developing countries and also outlined several challenges involved if personalised nutrition was ever going to go mainstream. The take home message of his talk was ‘even if someone carries the obesity gene, it doesn’t mean that he/she is destined to become obese; they can overcome this genetic risk by improving their lifestyle such as consuming a healthy diet and doing more levels of physical activity’.
Third Speaker of the session was Ms. Saima Rasheed,Consultant Dietitian from National Medical Centre,Karachi,who talked about healthy life style modification in prevention and management of Diabetes Speakers and PNDS President emphasized the establishment of certified Governmental body or National Nutrition and Dietetic Council to prevent nutrition & dietetic practice by non qualified people endangering public health. PNDS is continuously reinforcing Govt. and higher authorities for the formation of National Nutrition and Dietetic Council.
At the end of the program Winner of Nutrition and Dietetic Research Competition was announced and Prize was given to Ms. Mehreen Amir (Lecturer,School of Public Health Dow University of Health Sciences,Ojha Campus) by Nutrition Society UK. News Desk
