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The Department of Social Relations, East West University organized a seminar on ‘Public Health Nutrition in Bangladesh’ on 10 July at 02.00 pm in S. M. Nousher Ali Lecture Gallery (Room No. 126). The invited Guest Speakers of the seminar were, Tania Sharmin, Director Food Security & Livelihoods and Child Poverty, Save the Children Bangladesh; and Md. Taufiqul Islam, Manager- Right2Grow Consortium Program Bangladesh, Secretary- Scaling Up Nation (SUN), Civil Society Alliance (CSA) Bangladesh, Save the Children Bangladesh. Dr. Marzia Zaman Sultana, Senior Lecturer, Department of Social Relations, East West University was the Internal Speaker of the seminar. Dr. Touhida Tasnima, Associate Professor and Chairperson of DSR chaired the seminar and welcomed the Guest Speakers at the beginning of the seminar depicting the importance of industry-academia collaboration in the field of population and public health. Students of different courses of Population and Public Health Science Program were present in the seminar to gain practical field-based knowledge on public health nutrition in Bangladesh. She mentioned about the role of Save the Children Bangladesh as one of the leading international NGO working relentlessly to improve nutritional status of mothers and children, especially for the most vulnerable populations. Dr. Tasnima emphasized on the future collaboration in areas of internship, research, field visit and job opportunities for the upcoming graduates at Save the Children Bangladesh.

Dr. Marzia Zaman Sultana mainly focused on basics of human nutrition in her speech. She gave general overview on macro and micronutrient, their use in the human body, sources of these nutrients in different foods, their deficiency disorder and toxicities. Along with undernutrition problems she also talked about overnutrition and obesity and their effects on our health. Guest speaker Tania Sharmin, describe the food security and nutritional security status among Bangladeshi Children. She described the importance of availability, affordability, accessibility and utilization of variety of food to ensure the food security in our country context. Ms. Tania also mentioned some corrective measures to ensure food security among the most valuable groups of the population. Md. Taufiqul Islam described the project Child Profile Estimate and Costing Model' to reduce Child Undernutrition in selected Costal Areas of Bangladesh. Through this project they estimated the number of Children at the village and union level and calculated the costing of different government nutritional programs and initiatives to find out the gaps. Then the project tried to reduce those gaps to improve the nutritional Status of Children. They have incorporated this tool into government nutrition program. Finally. Prof. Dr. Md. Mobarak Hossain Khan summarized the total session and conducted the question answer and discussion session engaging the students and faculty members. During this discussion he emphasized the importance of nutritional status of the elderly population along with the children as the aging population of the country is increasing day by day. Besides, overnutrition, overweight and obesity and their relationship with NCDs are also matters of concern and a priority public health nutrition domain in the country.