Prof. Jaap Seidell is a well respected Dutch Professor in nutrition and head of the Nutrition Department of the Free University in Amsterdam. He has a special interest in public health promotion and obesity and was the former head of the National Department for Chronic Diseases Epidemiology at the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment in The Netherlands. Additionally he was Rapporteur and member of the WHO/FAO Expert Consultation on Diet, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases.

Prof. Mirjana Gurinovic is a well established Serbian nutrition hygiene expert and FAO specialist in the field of food and nutrition. She is currently working as Associate Research Professor at the Institute for Medical Research at the University of Belgrade. Former positions of professor Gurinovic include: Head of Nutrition Department in Public Health Institute in Subotica, Vice president of the Vojvodina’s Medical Doctor Association and Head of Nutrition Department in Public Health Institute in Subotica. She has published over 260 papers, abstracts and reports in local and international peer reviewed journals.

Prof. Arne Astrup is a Danish medical doctor with an exceptional track record in the field of obesity research. Professor Astrup’s research focuses on energy metabolism and he has a special interest in strategies for prevention and treatment of obesity. Since 1990 he heads The Department of Human Nutrition at The Faculty of Life Sciences of University of Copenhagen and he serves on many advisory boards and committees. From 2006- 2009 (June) he was appointed President of The International Association for the Study of Obesity (IASO). Professor Astrup has published over 380 original papers, including papers published in journals such as The Lancet, the British Medical Journal, and The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Prof. Gülden Pekcan, from Turkey,is the Head of Community Nutrition Division of the Hacettepe University Faculty of Health Sciences Department of Nutrition and Dietetics in Ankara. Really active on research on special diets and elaboration of nutrition strategies. She has participated in and coordinated a number of national and international collaborative studies. She acted as an expert consultant in the development of National Plan of Action for Food and Nutrition and has also been a member of several advisory committees and councils for national programmes, for Ministries, UNICEF and FAO in Turkey, on public health nutrition topics. She is a member of Advisory Committee of Ministry of Health on iodine deficiency disorders and iodisation of salt, prevention of iron deficiency anemia, bone health and vitamin D deficiency, national codex committee on nutrition and foods for special dietary uses, Turkish Society of Public Health Genomics and Nutrigenetics (TOGEN), Advisory Board of the Foundation for the Advancement of the Mediterranean Diet (Spain). She is the local coordinator of EU F6 project EUROPREVOB and participant of BRAFO project.

Prof. Dr. Veronika Somoza, from Germany, is Professor for Food Bioactivity at the University of Vienna, Austria. She was Associate Professor (tenured) at the University of Wisconsin at Madison before and is the former Vice Director of the German Research Centre for Food Chemistry. She focuses her research on the Chemical identification and characterisation of bioactive food components and their metabolites by using various analytical techniques. A regular reviewer for numerous publications, she has already published over 75 papers in refereed journals and presented her abstracts at more than 85 conferences.

Prof. Greet Vansant was trained as a clinical nutritionist at Wageningen University and received a PhD in Medical Sciences at Antwerp University Belgium in 1990. Her main research interests are obesity, nutrition during pregnancy and socio-economic influences on lifestyle habits. She is currently working as professor for the department of Nutrition, Preventive Medicine at the Catholic University Leuven and is clinical scientific advisor at the university hospital. Professor Vansant is an active member of scientific national and international organizatiosn among which the National Health Council of Belgium, the advisory committee of the National Food Safety Authority and is presently vice-president of the Belgian Nutrition Society and the Flemish Society for Clinical Nutrition. Since 1987, she has published about 330 papers, abstracts, book chapters and reports in international peer reviewed and in national journals.

Dr. Ronit Endevelt is the Director of Nutrition Services since 1990 at Maccabi Healthcare Services in Tel Aviv. A leading researcher in Israel, she serves on the Israel Ministry of Health’s Obesity Task Force as Director of the Healthy Future 2020 Committee for obesity prevention and on the Committee for Eating Disorders. She is a Lecturer in Haifa University on the subjects of Nutrition Policy, Life style and e-learning and Nutrition in Chronic Diseases. In addition, she regularly participates in national and international conferences on such issues.

Dr. Monique Raats is Reader and Director of the Food, Consumer Behaviour and Health Research Centre at the University of Surrey. Dr Raats previously worked at the Institute of Food Research, Health Education Authority and University of Oxford. Her portfolio of research is wide ranging in terms of topics being addressed (e.g. food choice, policy development, food labelling), and methodologies used (e.g. qualitative, quantitative, stakeholder consultation). She has also been involved in the evaluation of health promotion programmes and developing tools for use in nutrition education. Since her arrival at the University of Surrey in 2000, she has played a central role in securing research funding for both national and European research projects. She has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers, 16 book chapters, and co-edited two books, "The Psychology of Food Choice" (2006) and "Food for the Ageing Population" (2008). She currently has a leadership role on a number EU-funded projects including FLABEL (Food Labelling to Advance Better Education for Life). She is also one of the founding members and recent secretary of the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. She recently joined the UK's Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition.