Four students from the AUS Office of Student Affairs' Student Leadership Program (SLP) participated in the Public Health Think Tank Conference (PHTT) at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) held October 30-31, 2015 at the NYUAD Saadiyat Campus.

The 2015 Public Health Think Tank is a student-led initiative that aims to unite local university students to increase public health awareness in the UAE and to solve a problem of great societal importance. At PHTT 2015, students worked to devise public health interventions against obesity among children and adolescents, possibly one of the most pressing public health issues in the UAE today.

The event began with renowned speakers addressing the delegates about obesity, after which they were placed into teams to analyze the problem and develop new interventions to tackle the issue. Finally the teams were asked to present their ideas and the event concluded with the judges declaring the winners.

"The weekend spent at NYUAD was an extremely memorable one. The speakers there shed new light on the issue of obesity and made us look at the problem in a different perspective," said Osman Bin Omar, a junior majoring in finance. "I have benefited a lot from all the speakers and participants and have learned various ways obesity can be tackled. This is very important to me as I plan to do social work after graduating and this is why I was motivated to join."

"I was keen to attend this conference because I wanted to take a small step to tackle the nationwide issue of obesity. My team proposed the idea of implementing mandatory after-school fitness and educational programs at public schools, which won the second place at the competition," said Shruthy Jayakrishnan, a sophomore student majoring in economics.

"We are delighted to hear that our students benefited from their participation in the conference. This is the second year we have taken part in the conference, and since this year the topic tackled obesity among children and adolescents, it was crucial for our students to be part of this initiative. Congratulations to the AUS team for securing second prize in the competition," said Dr. Moza Al Shehhi, Dean of Students.