The Food, Nutrition and Society course helps students to unpack the complex and multidimensional nature of food security, nutrition, and their implications for a healthy society. Lang (2007)1 very nicely analyses how the discourse around food and nutrition has fundamentally diverged into either ​‘biological reductionism’ or an expansive socio-cultural analysis. The course will address, contextualize and problematize these divergent views and help students to build an understanding of: (i) why food and nutrition are important for development outcomes. The political imperative for ensuring food security is examined from multiple perspectives, including child survival and development, educational outcomes, growth of human capital and their implications for economic productivity; (ii) the role of various food system actors under pressure from political, societal and ecological changes, influenced by both local and distant actors and forces; (iii) the linkages between food and nutrition and other critical aspects of human development, with a focus on sectoral debates around what would be the optimal route to ensuring adequate availability and accessibility of food, particularly to vulnerable households; and (iv) contestations around ways in which food and nutrition can fit into the larger collective questions of welfare and environmental sustainability.