WPHNA World Public Health Nutrition Association

Your resource

Scroll down for access to previous contributions to World Nutrition, from its first issue in May 2010, to its 30th issue last month. This archive also links you to all regular columns from their beginnings, to last month. Currently these are by Claudio Schuftan, Geoffrey Cannon and Reggie Annan, and now also Philip James.

Access pdf of last month's WN editorial here
Access pdf of last month's WN commentary here

All four of our columnists were featured in our January issue. Philip James usually writes from London, Claudio Schuftan from Vietnam, Reggie Annan from Ghana, and Geoffrey Cannon from Brazil. Here follow some tasters.

Problems with Big Numbers

Richard Horton of The Lancet (left), saw the results as comparable to those of the Human Genome Project. Richard Peto (right) was less confident

Access pdf of last month's column by Philip James here

'Last month was of remarkable significance for those of us concerned with public health nutrition on an international scale. This was because of the astonishing new data and judgements published by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in The Lancet of 15 December, presented at London's Royal Society the previous day'. This is how Philip James began his column last month.

After a meticulous critique, he concluded, in sympathy with Richard Peto (above, right), also present at the meeting:: 'It remains unclear how the results of any gargantuan study of the type produced by IHME, however awesome, can be a useful basis for policies and actions that could improve public health. The study is attempting to identify the major factors involved in death and disability. This is potentially really useful but is only the first step in policy-making even if the results are valid. In the case of IHME, its approach overlooks social and economic determinants of health and disease. Thus, poverty is a major basic driver of many of the identified risk factors, and itself needs to be faced and addressed… Huge claims are being made, based on the evidence as accumulated and organised by the colossal and powerful IHME study. My conclusion, and that of others, is that caution is needed. Decades of careful analyses by WHO should not be discarded. All forms of evidence need to be taken into consideration in careful evaluations of the role of dietary patterns and food and nutrition'.

Vietnamese treats

Vietnamese fish sauce: factory in Phú Quôc; one of the hundreds of brands on sale; and the product mixed with water, sugar, lime, peppers, and garlic

Access pdf of last month's column by Claudio Schuftan here

Claudio Schuftan was persuaded last month to say what he likes about his adopted country. Among other gastronomic treats he chose fish sauce. 'In Vietnam this is an amber-coloured liquid made by fermenting anchovies with sea salt. It is widely used in many dishes. It is intensely flavoured, and those who have not been brought up with it, love it or hate it. Me, I love it. In addition to being added to dishes during the cooking process, it is also used as a base for a dipping sauce prepared in many different ways by cooks. As seen above (left) anchovies and salt are put in wooden tanks to ferment and are slowly pressed, yielding the salty, fishy liquid. It can be lightly sweet as well as salty to taste, and can even be sour or spicy if water, sugar, lime, garlic and hot peppers are added (right, above)'.

Need for stability in Africa

John Dramani Mahama, Ghanaian president since last July since the death
of John Atta Mills, and his life story. He has now been elected president

Access pdf of last month's column by Reggie Annan here

Reggie Annan wrote his column just after the presidential elections in Ghana. He said: 'In sub-Saharan Africa our very existence is determined by the extent of political stability. Countries in all stages of economic and other development that are making good progress are doing so because of long periods of stability and good governance. Without stability and peace, even if there are policies, effective implementation is not likely. There can be no reliable rule of law without stability. So often instead chaos ensues, as in many countries especially in Africa...Neighbour countries of Ghana include Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali and Côte d'Ivoire, which are or have been unstable due to wars and conflicts over the years. So in Ghana we are well aware of the cost of instability. But even with stability, there is the need for good governance and good leadership'.

Heroes for 2012

My heroes for 2012: Visionaries of big pictures, lovers of good food, public health advocates, professors, naturalists, writers, activists, revolutionaries

Access pdf of last month's column by Geoffrey Cannon here

Geoffrey Cannon thought about why he had picked the people shown above as his heroes throughout 2012. He said: 'Yes, I think there is a theme that connects all these people, at least as I have presented them, which is awareness of the effect of nourishment on well-being'. Thus, from his hero for May Claudia Roden (top row, firth from left above):

My grandmother, Eugénie Alphandary, spoke an old Judeo-Spanish language called Ladino with her friends and relatives in Egypt. They were descended from Jews who had been expelled from Spain in 1492…Their songs about lovers in Seville and proverbs about meat stews and almond cakes were for me, as I was growing up in Cairo, a mysterious lost paradise, a world of romance and glorious chivalry.

When I travelled to research The Food of Spain, traces of the old Muslim presence – Arabesque carvings, blue and white tiles, a fountain spouting cool water in a scented garden – evoked memories of the Arab and Jewish world I was born in… The way people cooked, the ingredients they put together, their little tricks, their turn of hand, were mysteriously familiar. A word, a taste, a smell, triggered memories I never knew I had.

Claudia Roden, 1936 –
The Guardian, 18 March 2012, on her book The Food of Spain

The editors