This month
The way of the world now
Time covers 2008 (left), 1987 (right). On the left, some of the world is stuffed.
On the right, much of the world stays starved. So what new can the UN do?
This month's home page stories show that we who work in public health nutrition cannot complain that our topic is overlooked or forgotten. Our discipline and our practice is concerned both with obesity, now pandemic and afflicting impoverished urban populations more than the better-off; and also with undernutrition and food insecurity, and even hunger and starvation, which persists in Asia and Africa and is once again a crisis in the Sahel.
One question is, how deeply do we feel we should and can engage? Another larger question is, what can the United Nations do? This month we feature the most recent draft of the 'Political Declaration' being prepared for the UN Summit on Non-Communicable Diseases that takes place next month. If you are a member of, or connected with, member state delegations to the Summit, or if you have a relevant position within the UN, you can still work to make a difference now. Go for it.
Interactivity in Rio
Every month on our home page we feature the progress being made towards our Rio2012 congress. Every month as you see, we feature as motifs, more and more of the spiral shapes that have been created in Rio to symbolise our congress, being planned with our Brazilian partners Abrasco. The congress is now open both for registration and for submission of abstracts. The theme of this month's feature is interactivity. The main congress sessions, from plenaries to symposia to workshops, will themselves be interactive. Also, congress sessions will be available and interactive for organisations and groups not physically present at the Rio venue. Rio2012 executive secretary Inês Rugani is thrilled to be supported in her work by legions of energetic, resourceful, committed young colleagues. The future looks bright! Later, and quite soon, we will be able to give first details of speakers and themes of the main sessions.
Let the sun shine in
One of this month's World Nutrition commentaries is by Oliver Gillie, former medical correspondent in the UK of The Sunday Times and then The Independent. It is on the topic of vitamin D. One of the reasons that the functions and value of vitamin D are now so much discussed, as recently in the April issue of our sister journal Public Health Nutrition, is that for over a decade Oliver Gillie has been campaigning for better and fuller understanding of the vitamin whose main source is the sun (left). He concludes that advice to 'cover up' when the sun is shining, to avoid skin cancer, can be badly mistaken, and he puts his body where his mind is (centre). He says we have much to learn from animals, such as the chameleon (right) whose behaviour adjusts to ensure optimum absorption of vitamin D.
The editors
