The Reading research team received funding from the British Council’s UK-Malaysia Education Institutional Partnership Award for their N2RTU project.
A university team working to address Malaysia’s obesity crisis has received a prestigious education award. The Reading research team received funding from the British Council’s UK-Malaysia Education Institutional Partnership Award for their N2RTU project.
This ground-breaking project concentrated on exchanging information in new nutritional research fields, like how genetics may affect obesity.
Workshops, outreach activities, and webinars hosted by the University of Reading’s food science and nutrition experts included participation from nutritionists, clinicians, dieticians, students, and academics. The seminars were created to assist medical professionals in addressing issues like obesity and malnutrition among Malaysia’s most vulnerable citizens.
The research was conducted under the direction of Professor Vimal Karani from the University of Reading in the UK and Dr. Anto Cordelia Tanislaus Antony Dhanapal from Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Malaysia.
“We knew we faced a big challenge when we started this project because obesity affects a large number of vulnerable people in Malaysia, but especially mothers, children, teenagers, and young adults,” said Professor Karani, a specialist in nutrigenetics and nutrigenomics.
“Our training initiatives encourage Malaysian healthcare workers to adopt new perspectives on obesity. A greater number of people will be able to receive individualised support in their quest for fitness by taking into account how genetics can affect weight.
“So far, the results have been incredibly encouraging, and this award proves that we are moving forward in our efforts to combat obesity in Malaysia.”
The award was given to the Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health (IFNH) at the University of Reading in the UK and the UTAR in Malaysia on June 8, 2023, ahead of Cambridge University and Edinburgh University.
The team’s achievement represents the most recent accomplishment in the University’s support of research in Malaysia.
In EduCity Iskandar, the University of Reading Malaysia opened its doors in 2015. The contemporary campus was designed with flexibility in mind and offers classrooms for a variety of subjects, including business, real estate, quantity surveying, law, and psychology.
The same University of Reading diploma is awarded to UoRM graduates as it is to their British counterparts.