Members' Profiles A - D
I grew up in a very small town in central Sweden. Back then, only children from poor families were provided with a free school lunch. The rest of us went home to our devoted mothers who had cooked for us. The differences between social groups were therefore made very visible for us children, already from the first grade.
My first serious encounter with nutrition was when I as a 17-year old saw a well known environmentalist wash his shirt in coffee whitener on TV! I remember getting really upset, suddenly understanding that the coffee whitener was made from synthetic ingredients and had never been close to a cow, and my choice of studying nutrition was given.
I do believe that my early encounter with socioeconomic differences between children, even in a welfare state like Sweden, later followed by the sudden revelation that some 'foods' were practically only confections of food additives, has shaped my feeling of a need for more attention to equity issues and also the importance of 'food dignity', meaning food being produced and served with heart as well as brain.
I was recruited to the Karolinska Institutet in 1987 after having worked freelance as a nutritionist for many years. My task was to build the unit for public health nutrition where I still am located. Having taken an MSc in nutrition, I studied public health and got my MPH at the Karolinska Institutet and started to build a training programme in public health nutrition. I defended my PhD thesis in 2005 and was appointed associate professor in 2008, both in medical nutrition at the Karolinska.
It has become very obvious to me that the political system is mostly run by economists and lawyers, with a completely different mindset than nutritionists. In order to make ourselves heard and thereby make a difference in low-income as well as high-income countries, we need to make sure that the next generation of public health nutritionists has a commitment and a drive to change political systems and to produce and implement nutrition action plans. They also need to evaluate and adjust the actions accordingly, in order to change things around and make this world more equal in regards to food, nutrition and health.
Swedish citizen, now working in Norway. Professor and research manager at the faculty of health, nutrition and management at Akershus University College, Lilleström, Norway. I also hold a 20% position as associate professor and unit head at the Karolinska, and an adjunct professorship at Arizona State University. My current research is dealing mostly with childhood nutritional health, fruit and vegetable promotion in schools, investigating components of breastmilk of importance for infant health, and doing surveys on childhood growth in collaboration with WHO Europe.
I am also, through one of my PhD students, involved in identifying issues of importance for training programmes in public health nutrition. I am the Swedish principal investigator of a major walking intervention at the Karolinska and Arizona State University, involving more than 2,000 staff, where another one of my PhD students is assessing effects of a pedometer intervention over a six month period. Editor-in-chief, the journal Public Health Nutrition since 2007. Association Council member.
Agneta.yngve@ki.se
I was born and grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly known as Zaire. I completed secondary school with outstanding academic achievements, and I wanted to complete a degree in either medicine or geological and mining engineering in order to obtain a high profile career to save my family and community from poverty. However, due to corruption under the dictator Mobutu, entry requirements for the school of medical or geoscience was not necessarily based on one's academic achievements. These degrees were for children of powerful politicians and government officials. Instead, I was offered a place in either nursing or public health nutrition.
Because some of the public health and nutrition courses were taught by internationally renowned foreign professors, I decided to complete a degree of public health nutrition. I obtained my bachelor degree in 1990. After completing my bachelor degree, I worked with the Zairian health department at state level, coordinating community nutrition programs and vaccination coverage.
In 1994 I was recruited by UNICEF to oversee the survey of vaccination coverage and vitamin A distribution. This position provided me with an opportunity to appreciate integrated public health practice. Consequently, I obtained a position with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees as a nutrition supervisor of refugee camps, seconded to Concern Worldwide. I was involved in the planning, implementation and evaluation of public health and nutrition interventions to address the health needs of the 500,000-800,000 Rwandan refugees who crossed the border into the North Kivu province of Zaire. This included the coordination of measles immunisation campaigns and vitamin A distribution as well as the management and evaluations of nutritional interventions such as selective feeding programs and the general food distribution.
My work in refugee camps increased my interest in integrated public health nutrition. In 1997 I emigrated to Australia to pursue further studies, completing my master's degree in public health in 2000 and a PhD in 2004. While completing my studies, in 2003 I was appointed as a Senior Program Quality Advisor at World Vision Australia to oversee more than 40 AusAID NGO cooperation programmes, covering sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, the Pacific and Asia. However, working with non-government organisations has always been a challenge due to the disconnect between evidence and practice. Most programmes were not theory-driven or informed by evidence and best practice, and in many case were opportunistic in nature dependent on funding availability.
In 2007, I decided to become an academic to bridge the gap between evidence and practice, focusing on migration, social disadvantage, and health. As a human right activist on issues related to public health and nutrition inequalities, I formed the African Review Panel and the African Leadership, Learning and Advocacy Group (www.allag.org.au) which helps disseminate evidence generated by my research to the grass roots level and mobilise the community to devise solutions to identified problems or to uptake successful interventions.
Australian citizen. Current: appointments as follows. Associate professor and principal research fellow: migration, social disadvantage, and health, Deakin University; approved contractor, New Zealand's International Aid and Development Agency; executive director, African leadership, learning and advocacy group (www.allag.org.au); visiting senior lecturer (integrated public health nutrition), Centre for International Health, Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health. Past appointments as follows. 2007-2010, senior research fellow, Deakin University. 2003-2006, senior program quality advisor, World Vision Australia. 2000-2002: state-wide research & evaluation coordinator, Centre for Culture Ethnicity and Health. 1996-1997: nutrition supervisor of refugee camp, Care Australia. 1995: nutrition supervisor, UNHCR/Concern Worldwide. 1993-1994: surveyor of vaccination coverage, UNICEF.
andre.renzaho@deakin.edu.au
In my family, as everywhere in Greece, cooking and eating is not just part of our daily routine but a ceremony, an essential element of our culture. The preparation of our Sunday family lunch, with the wonderful smells coming out of the kitchen, was I guess my entry into nutrition. Watching closely my mother and aunts cooking and discussing about which ingredient or spice could have made the food even tastier was my initiation to cooking. This ritual was a valuable experience and my first classes on the value of nutrition at the same time.
That was the reason why I decided to study chemistry. I was interested in going deep into the secrets of food science. While waiting for my MSc course on human nutrition to begin, I worked as an interviewer in the Greek part of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and nutrition (EPIC), a cohort study collecting dietary data all over the country. That is when I was first exposed to nutritional epidemiology and related fieldwork, an experience I cherish and frequently recall particularly when I am analysing data.
Early in my professional life, I was lucky enough to follow the setting up of the largest cohort study on diet and chronic diseases ever undertaken in my country. I also had the privilege of being educated by two Greek scientists, internationally recognised leaders in the field of the role of diet in disease prevention and of Mediterranean diet in particular. Currently as a member of the faculty of the University of Athens Medical School, I am working towards the inclusion of courses on nutritional epidemiology and public health nutrition in the curriculum of the Athens Medical School, addressing health professionals and biostatisticians. My research interests relate to diet and physical activity as preventive forces behind the development of chronic morbidity and how this knowledge could be conveyed to the general public. My great ambition is the undertaking of a Greek national nutrition survey, whereas my dream is to persuade Greek politicians of the necessity of such a data collection on a regular basis.
Greek citizen. Assistant Professor of Hygiene and Epidemiology in the University of Athens Medical School, Collaborator of the Hellenic Health Foundation and Staff Member of the Greek WHO Collaborating Centre for Nutrition. Secretary of the Greek Society of Nutrition and Foods. Several publications in scientific journals and chapter books on nutrition monitoring in Europe, Mediterranean diet and chronic conditions and eating out of home as part of contemporary eating habits.
anaska@nut.uoa.gr
I have been devoted to public health, and in particular public health nutrition, throughout my professional life. I started being aware of public health as early as in the fourth year of my medical studies at the University of Athens. I was fortunate to be chosen by a distinguished and highly respected 'old style' professor of hygiene and epidemiology, to help him in the various teaching and research activities he was carrying out. One day, I dared to make some comments on the plan of work. He told to me in his deep voice: 'For the next ten years you will listen, you will not speak'.
For bad or good, the next ten years I was listening and learning, either in the clinics or in the laboratories where I was doing my internship and later as a student in the Athens, and then the Ann Arbor, schools of public health. In the late 1960s, I decided to speak my mind on a health issue. I did not realise that this was my first step to public health nutrition. What I was asking, without getting a satisfactory answer, was: 'Why do we recommend seed oils for better health, rather than olive oil?' Later I realised that public health is a way of thinking that differs from clinical medicine, and I decided not to practice medicine but to be devoted to public health.
Working on lipid metabolism I was further involved with nutrition. In 1979 I became professor of nutrition and biochemistry in the National School of Public Heath in Athens. What a challenging task! No food composition tables, no surveys, no methodologies, no laboratories – and being constantly asked what the Greeks are eating, and what they should eat. Perseverance and hard work was needed for many years, under the constraint of very limited resources. But there were also rewards. I was able to see the traditional Mediterranean diet that I have been advocating since the early 1980s, become widely recognised as a health-promoting diet.
In 1980, Greece became Member of the European Union. This was a new start. I had the opportunity to meet distinguished colleagues and to collaborate and interact with them in various projects. I was given the opportunity to participate in many WHO and EU committees and thus to understand that public health nutrition is more than publishing good papers, in order to provide evidence-based arguments. It also requires one to be outspoken, even at the risk of being occasionally unpleasant.
Greek citizen. MD, PhD. Professor and director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Nutrition at the Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, School of Medicine, University of Athens. She has served as president of the Federation of the European Nutrition Societies (FENS), and as chairperson or key member of numerous Greek, European Commission and World Health Organization Committees. She has received numerous honours and awards and was decorated by the president of the Greek Republic with the Golden Cross of Honour for her work in nutrition and public health.
In the 1980s she led the work that renewed interest in the Mediterranean Diet as a health promoting diet. Later she developed a score that allows measurement of adherence to this diet, which also facilitates study of its health effects. In the early 2000s she took the lead in creating the Hellenic Health Foundation, a very active non-profit organisation which is dedicated to serving public health and high-quality related research.
antonia@nut.uoa.gr
Once I enrolled in undergraduate nutrition and dietetic studies, I knew that prevention was the only route that made sense to me. After my internship, I decided that I would go anywhere – as long as it was public health. My first job was in a small Northern community in Canada. But straight out of school, I didn't think it made sense when people asked me to come and teach them how to cook, when I had so much expertise in nutrition to offer them. Understanding that these two cannot be separated was lesson number one.
However, the monumental shifts in my outlook began a decade later – in the mid 1990s – when I became immersed in the determinants of health, food security and food policy. First, I worked on a project in partnership with community members living in low income. Here, I became the student. I learned about the politics of poverty, the daily affronts to their dignity, and understood that lining up in a food bank to receive out-of-date food really wasn't a first choice for people. On the other hand, I also began my education in food politics and food policy. I learned about, and began to speak about the impact of the broader environment and food systems on our food choices. A career highlight was chairing/co-chairing the process to successfully advocate for food security as a core public health programme in British Columbia, Canada. I have also travelled and studied food programmes abroad – including Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Hokkaido, Japan; Rwanda, and Kuwait (where I currently live).
I was awarded a PhD in food policy at City University, UK, in 2011, under the advisement of Dr. Tim Lang, Dr. Martin Caraher and Dr. Aleck Ostry. My dissertation was a policy analysis of newly integrated food security programmes into the British Columbia government in Canada, with a focus on public health. I took an ecological approach to the policy analysis, and plan to apply this model in future research settings. Key research areas of interest for me centre on food policy for sustainable foods and food security, and on the role of the public health nutritionist in these issues.
In the Association, I am thrilled to find a group of like-minded people at an international level, who are working to position public health nutrition and ecological nutrition where it should be – as a driver for food systems, rather than as a consequence of it.
I have been active in conference presentations on food security and food policy, and have also taught courses as a sessional instructor at the University of British Columbia. I am spending the next year writing articles for publication based on my PhD dissertation, and pursing opportunities to work on policy for food sustainability and food security.
Canadian Citizen. I have worked for over 20 years in public health nutrition. My undergraduate degree is in dietetics from the University of Manitoba, and I interned as a dietitian in Manitoba. My master's degree is in public health, nutrition administration, from the University of Minnesota, and my PhD in food policy is from City University, UK. I am a member of the College of Dietitians of British Columbia; the British Columbia Food Systems Network; and the Canadian Association of Food Studies.
barb_seed@yahoo.com
I grew up in Australia. My first job, in 1975, was working as a physical anthropologist on an archeological excavation in South Australia. I was struck by the contrast of what seemed like the ideal life led by aboriginals for many thousands of years in harmony with their environment and seemingly healthy. This contrasted with aboriginals then living in Adelaide who were in very poor health and with clear signs of social breakdown.
It seemed to me at the time that poor nutrition must be an issue. I knew nothing about this so paid for myself to go to the UK to learn some more. In England I met colleagues from around the world and afterwards visited Kerala, India, and stayed at the Centre for Development Studies. I realised that equity, social justice and women's empowerment could really make a difference to the effective use of scarce resources.
These early experiences shaped the way I think about how nutrition, as a biological science, also fits within a wider social and ecological context. Studying epidemiology and public health then made me realise that to make things better, or to keep them well, we need to address the underlying causes and not just treat the symptoms: in other words we must use a preventive population approach. Travelling the world has reinforced my conviction that we need to improve the system and structure within which nutrition operates to make it more effective in all countries. This is what motivates me to do public health nutrition.
Australian/ British citizen, based in the UK since 1985. Currently Professor in Public Health Nutrition, University of Southampton and visiting Professor at North West University, South Africa and at University of The Sunshine Coast in Queensland. I was recently awarded an honorary doctorate from the North West University. My scholarship focuses now on interventions aimed at improving nutrition related health in Africa, India and the UK, including workforce development. Founding editor-in-chief of Public Health Nutrition and continue as deputy editor. Most recent books Public Health Nutrition (edited with Mike Gibney, John Kearney, Lenore Arab) Blackwell Science, Oxford 2004. I am currently preparing a book with Roger Hughes for practitioners. Association President.
B.M.Margetts@soton.ac.uk
My entry into nutrition was when I worked for a year in a squatter area in old Delhi, India, in the mid-1960s. I became interested in health and welfare and learned Hindi during this time. When I returned to the University of Wisconsin I decided to focus on the economics of nutrition for my thesis. I then worked at the US government's new poverty agency, the Office of Economic Opportunity, and helped to write the Citizens Crusade Against Hunger report.
I then became a political activist organising welfare mothers and unions, and was involved in civil rights and the anti-war struggle. My Marxist and Maoist perspective was of the need to organise communities at the grassroots to achieve true social change. I then returned to academic work and obtained my PhD from Cornell University. My interests were – and remain – nutrition, the poor, and the interaction of socio-economic and individual factors.
I began my academic career with a position in Asia with the Rockefeller Foundation. After spending three years in Southeast Asia I returned to the US and took a job at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This institution has allowed me to build my research and training programme over time and I have remained happily ensconced there for over 30 years.
My economics and activist backgrounds have given me a special perspective on nutrition. Concerns such as how low income families live and earn their living led me to focus on women's work as it affects infant and child nutrition, and to other early work on poverty in the US and around the world. Because of having intense experiences in Asia and the US, I have always felt comfortable studying both worlds.
Midway through my career I began to feel that that to focus on small intense studies was to miss the major global socio-economic and demographic transitions. This prompted me to develop the China Health and Nutrition Survey, which has continued over almost a 20-year period now. At this time I also spent an intense period of study and writing, thinking about the major global and historical transitions in food, nutrition, physical activity and body composition. I then began to develop my theory of the nutrition transition.
The rest is history! My China work has expanded to many countries, including Russia, and with Carlos Monteiro in Brazil and more recently Mexico with Juan Rivera and others. My main interest is the global nutrition transition – in particular, the rapid shift to a stage of nutrition-related degenerative diseases with all the dynamic shifts in diet, activity, and obesity. My global research includes longitudinal studies I direct in China, Russia, and the Philippines, and related work in Brazil and other countries.
US citizen. Distinguished Professor Global Nutrition, Division of Nutrition Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). Director, UNC-CH Interdisciplinary Obesity Center, linking scholars focused on cell to society to addressing obesity globally. Faculty member, UNC-CH Nutrition Department, School of Public Health, and also of the Economics Department. Convenor, International Union of Nutritional Sciences task force on the nutrition transition Recent book is the The World is Fat: The Fads, Trends, Policies, and Products that are Fattening the Human Race (Penguin, 2009). Association founding member.
popkin@unc.edu
I come from a multicultural background: Spanish, Irish, Flemish/Belgian, and have followed the family tradition of studying medicine. Although nutrition was not at the time considered interesting enough to be taught as a separate subject, I was soon hooked on the fascinating interplay between nutrients and their metabolism.
During a course on tropical medicine in Antwerp I discovered public health nutrition, and received my first courses on nutrition and epidemiology from admirably committed professors. It was a challenge to apply what I had learned to the rural setting of Paraguay, an economically developing country undergoing rapid economic and political changes, where I had chosen to work as a volunteer rural doctor. I was very lucky and honored to work with very motivated rural health workers and especially with (grand)mothers. They helped me to conduct some rudimentary nutritional surveys and motivated me to try and convince the authorities about the need to improve child and mother nutrition without neglecting the elderly.
Although I have spent years doing quite basic laboratory and clinical research, the motivation to help improve nutrition in economically developing countries has always stayed with me. My ideal is to help communicate the scientific information that is relevant to the actors in the field, including students, health workers and policy-makers. I firmly believe that correct communication to all sectors of society leads to understanding, decreases fear and generates hope.
Spanish and Belgian citizen. I have worked in Antwerp since 1982. I am currently senior researcher, in the laboratory of experimental medicine & paediatrics, faculty of medicine, University of Antwerp, Belgium. My research interests focus on bio-monitoring micronutrient status and the impact of dietary or supplementation interventions. I lecture in Biochemistry at the Plantijn College of Dietitians, associated with the University of Antwerp. I am invited Erasmus professor at the faculty of medicine and nutrition at the University Rovira I Virgili, Reus, Spain. As a team member in the project 'Food, nutrition and health' of the VLIR-UOS Flemish inter-university development co-operation programme with Cuenca University, Ecuador, I am involved in studying the impact of transition on adolescent obesity and chronic metabolic disease risk.
begona.manuelykeenoy@ua.ac.be
I started my work career as a food service manager in community hospitals in South Africa. Working in communities, and dealing with nutrition issues, I decided to pursue a career in nutrition. I committed to public health when I started my first degree and conducted my study in pre-school children. I then continued my studies in child community nutrition health. I wanted to be a public health nutritionist in communities, so I could identify and address nutrition problems. Working in an academic institution gave me the opportunity to do so.
Nutritionists affiliated with academic institutions can impact on the nutritional health of the communities that they work in, by conducting nutrition surveys in these communities and sharing this information through publications and presenting it to policy makers. Planned interventions through postgraduate studies can impact on the nutritional health of the communities by addressing problems identified through the surveys.
South African citizen. I am working as an associate professor in the department of food and nutrition consumer sciences at the Durban University of Technology. I am also the programme coordinator for the BTech and postgraduate studies in the department. I am a registered nutritionist in South Africa.
carinn@dut.ac.za
My special interest is the causation and prevention of cancer; in particular the impact of different types of diet on cancer risk. Living as I do in the Mediterranean region, I am aware that traditional Mediterranean diets evidently protect against some cancers, as well as cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases. This is because such diets are rich in pulses, fresh fruits and vegetables – and hence in selected micronutrients. It is the complex composition of Mediterranean diets, rather than any single food or nutrient, that is evidently most relevant. Olive oil is the key common characteristic of diets throughout the Mediterranean region. Olive oil also evidently protects against the risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as of several cancers, particularly of the digestive tract. Polyunsaturated fats in fish have been associated with reduced risk of selected cancers and cardiovascular disease.
I also investigate the relevance of different types of carbohydrates, in relation to their fibre composition and glycaemic index and load, in the process of carcinogenesis.
To increase our understanding of the mechanisms bearing on disease causation, I have conducted extensive epidemiological research. This includes systematic analyses of cancer trends in Europe and also worldwide, in order to identify and explain major differences in cancer rates. They also include examination of the separate and combined effects of alcohol and of tobacco on carcinogenesis. Besides epidemiologic research, public health education and prevention are key aspects of all my activities.
Italian citizen. Head of the Laboratory of Epidemiology at the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, Italy. Also Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Milan, Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and Adjunct Professor of Medicine, School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. Author or co-author of over 1,600 publications in peer reviewed journals (1470 included in Medline). Association Council member.
lavecchia@marionegri.it
I have two abiding commitments. One is to the independence and social responsibility of scientists. The other is to the health and welfare of the people – beginning with my own country, and also internationally. These are not only intellectual ideas. I learned them in the 1970s, at the time of Brazil's period of military dictatorship, when I worked as a young paediatrician in poor rural villages and urban slums in the state of São Paulo, and also in Porto Nacional, a small city in the backlands of what is now the Northern state of Tocantins.
Also I learned that sustained protection and improvement of public health depends on a good understanding of the history, culture, resources and political regime of any country. These also depend on identifying the basic causes of disease and health, which vary with time and place. Brazil, a very big country, with many types of deep-seated inequity, and ruled in the last five decades successively by the military, social democrats and populists, taught me a lot about such aspects.
One more thing I have learned is not to take received ways of thinking for granted. As one example, with colleagues at the School of Public Health at the University of São Paulo, I am currently investigating the possibility that the most significant factor linking food with health and the risk of disease is not so much the food itself, or the nutrients in food, as much as processing – what is done to food before we buy and consume it.
My ongoing lines of research include population nutritional and food intake assessment; secular trends and biological and socioeconomic determinants of both nutritional deficiencies and of obesity and other nutrition-related diseases; and the evaluation of food and nutrition programmes.
International work includes studies on the studies on the linked nutrition and epidemiological transitions in low- and middle-income developing countries, in association with Barry Popkin and other colleagues.
Brazilian citizen. MD and PhD, both at the University of São Paulo (USP). Two-year postdoctoral training at the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University, New York. Since entry in 1975 as an assistant professor, my entire academic career has been centred at the Department of Nutrition of the School of Public Health at USP. Tenured professorship acquired in 1990. Worked for the Nutrition Unit at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva 1990-1992, and was visiting Professor at the universities of Bonn and Geneva.
Scientific coordinator of the USP Centre for Epidemiological Studies in Health and Nutrition. Editor of Revista de Saúde Pública; an Associate Editor of Public Health Nutrition; and a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Obesity. Currently a member of the WHO Nutrition Expert Advisory Group (NUGAG). Also a member of the task force of the Pan American Health Organization for the elimination of trans fats in the Americas. Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences since 2008. Association Council member.
carlosam@usp.br
I would like to believe that I am still living 'early life experiences', as I think most of my professional life is still ahead of me. However, my interest in public health nutrition came during my school years while doing volunteering in impoverished rural areas of Mexico. It was the late 90s and there was still a high prevalence of undernutrition in these areas. I decided to study nutrition to help and improve the lives of Mexicans living in poverty who were undernourished. I believed (and believe) the inequities I saw in Mexico were unfair.
When I started university I learned that obesity and nutrition-related chronic disease were the problems of the 'future' and that our generation of nutritionists would have to deal with this and not undernutrition any more. I was a bit disappointed. However, I enjoyed my studies very much. I also realised that tackling nutrition problems such as obesity at the clinical nutrition level was extremely difficult and frustrating when the environment where people lived and their socioeconomic position conditioned them to ways of life that were liable to make them ill. I was never interested in one-on-one nutrition advice, I always thought of the big picture and about how to change it.
I believe in tackling health inequities: for example, by addressing how certain risk factors such as unhealthy eating are socially patterned. I believe in regulation of the food industry for example in issues such as marketing to children and trans fatty acids. I also think we have to look at social, economic, political and environmental determinants of disease, health and well-being in order sustainably to tackle many of the health problems the world faces today.
Mexican and Spanish citizen. In the past I worked for three years in the UK National Health Service as the programme manager of a cardiovascular disease prevention initiative in a London borough. Before my MSc I was a nutritionist and researcher at the National Institute for Respiratory Diseases, Mexico City. My research focused on metabolic and body composition abnormalities secondary to antiretroviral therapy for HIV/AIDS.
carolina.perez.10@ucl.ac.uk
I grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, and very early in life experienced the impact of public health nutrition policy by being on the receiving end of food rationing and supplements of cod liver oil, rose-hip syrup and concentrate orange juice (all delicious). Despite the limited number of foods available we were well provided for nutritionally. Herring was a prominent part of our childhood diet. Their decline around the coast of Scotland first made me aware of the wider picture of global changes in the availability of different foods sources.
My interest in science and also arts and crafts, as well as misrepresentation of the profession in a careers talk, led me to study dentistry in Edinburgh. By the second year I knew that this was not for me but I graduated as a dental surgeon. I then spent a research year in Paris where my horizons were broadened by meeting students from all over the world. It was there that I read the inspiring Geography of Hunger by the Brazilian physician, academic, member of parliament and activist, Josué de Castro, who had received the International Peace Prize in 1953, while chairman of the council of FAO.
I migrated to Berkeley in California in the late 1960s and became progressively politicised in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war ferment. I was offered a research post in the nutrition department to work on fish protein concentrate. This was one of the proposed means of 'solving' the current big issue, the 'World Protein Gap'. However, people were concerned that the concentrate had excessive levels of fluoride. While researching this I also studied for a Masters in nutrition, so sliding from dentistry to broader themes. I then spent two years in Iran at the Institute of Nutrition in Teheran, my first practical experience of an economically developing country, with sharp contrasts between rich and poor and extensive severe malnutrition despite the riches. My work there included helping with Institute projects such as measuring the energy requirements of different sections of the population, and carrying out research on lactation failure as the field work for my PhD, and taking on consultancies on nutrition problems in remote areas. These were the foundations of my interest in public health nutrition.
Two years in Paris followed, working in the laboratory of Professor Jean Trémolières whose approach to nutrition was very different from the Anglo-Saxon reductionist approach into nutrients. He also emphasised the importance of the social aspects of food and its 'voluptuousness'. Then back to Berkeley to finish the PhD.
I was then appointed lecturer in the University of London (Queen Elizabeth College, later merged with King's College) to teach public health nutrition and food and nutrition policy, where I have remained ever since. My teaching and research later extended into other areas, including energy metabolism and obesity, and iron metabolism. And my experience of public health nutrition also extended, through consultancies and PhD students, to many countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. I also spent a sabbatical year as visiting professor in Cornell, with visits to China, helping to analyse data from the Cornell-Oxford-Beijing China Project that related aspects of nutrition to social and environmental factors.
Over the decades of my involvement in nutrition it has been fascinating to follow and participate in the development of the subject and the growth of interest in public health nutrition and policy. In the early 1970s the weaknesses of the nutrition system were highlighted first in Alan Berg's seminal book The Nutrition Factor. Then followed Leonard Joy and Philip Payne's national nutrition planning which was promoted by FAO and USDA and attempted by several countries. However at that time it often proved impracticable to take into account the many factors affecting nutrition because of the complexity of coordinating different sectors. It was also difficult to make rational choices between possible interventions as there were so few evaluations of their effectiveness.
Since then we know much more about what is effective, the 'Protein Gap' has been relegated to a myth, and we have learned from this experience how inappropriate policies can be made. With this increased knowledge, the recent pressures for improvements in the nutrition system, and the setting up of international and other agency collaborations, we are now in a much stronger position to act more effectively in public health nutrition.
UK citizen. Currently Professor Emerita of Human Nutrition, King's College London and consultant in Human Nutrition. Previously visiting professor at MRC Human Nutrition Research and associate at Darwin College, Cambridge; Director of UK Higher Education Academy, Centre for Health Sciences and Practice; professor of Human Nutrition, King's College London; head, division of health sciences, School of Health and Life Sciences, Kings College London; Head of department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Kings College London; visiting professor, Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University.
International consultancies and advisory bodies: World Bank; WHO; European Parliament; Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR); United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); Asian Development Bank; Parsconsult; FAO; International Livestock Centre for Africa; British Council. Publications: over 200 academic journal articles, research reports, reviews, book chapters and books including Geissler & Powers (eds) Human Nutrition, Elsevier (11th edition 2005, 12th edition 2010); Geissler & Powers, Fundamentals of Human Nutrition, Elsevier, 2009; Vaughan & Geissler, New Oxford Book of Food Plants (1st edition 1997, 2nd edition 2009).
Committee membership has included: Food Advisory Committee to UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) , subsequently to UK Food Standards Agency (FSA); British Nutrition Society Council; International and Public Health Group of Nutrition Society; Society for International Nutrition (AIN) executive committee; World Cancer Research Fund Grant Review Panel; UN Standing Committee for Nutrition (SCN) NGO/CSO advisory group.
catherine.geissler@kcl.ac.uk
Since I started medical school in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1971, I was always concerned about population health. My residency in community health in one of the city's slums convinced me that treating sick people – who came back repeatedly to our health centre with the same recurring problems – was not the most efficient way of improving their health, and led me into prevention and epidemiology. Among all sick people with whom I had contact, I was most touched by young children suffering from undernutrition, diarrhoea and other infections, and I decided to focus my efforts on finding out how to improve their state.
After a doctorate in epidemiology in the United Kingdom, I went back to Pelotas in the extreme south of Brazil, and dedicated my career to doing research on breastfeeding, undernutrition and child infections. I helped set up the 1982 Pelotas birth cohort study, which is still ongoing, and carried out research that helped establish the role of breastfeeding on the prevention of infant mortality. Living in one of the most unequal countries in the world in the 1970s and 1980s, a major concern with inequalities in health was built into all my research endeavours.
My current work is focused on three themes, as follows. Life-course epidemiology with the sustained study of the three Pelotas birth cohorts (1982, 1993 and 2004); inequalities in health; and the evaluation of interventions to improve the health of mothers and children. My interests have taken me beyond Brazil, to help carry out several research projects in Africa, Asia and other Latin American countries.
I am fortunate to have spent over three decades doing work that I care about, and to have helped train a wonderful team of epidemiologists in Pelotas.
Brazilian citizen. MD (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) and PhD (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine). Emeritus professor at the Federal University of Pelotas, visiting professor at the Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. President-Elect of the International Epidemiological Association.
cvictora@gmail.com
I grew up in a small village in the north-east of Austria. In my family, shared meals were of real social importance. I always attended school classes where subjects such as nutrition and home economics, nutrition science, and cooking were part of the curriculum. 'Nutrition' and 'health' have always had a positive connotation for me. Later on I recognised that very few children in our school system were given the chance to learn something about health literacy or nutrition competence. This was one of my motives for choosing nutrition and home economics for my teacher training studies.
During a number of years teaching children at secondary level, I witnessed the profound lack of health promotion and nutrition literacy in schools. I studied nutrition science and home economics at the University of Vienna while continuing teaching at secondary level. After travelling a lot through South-East Asia and several years' teaching experience in Scotland, Estonia and Hungary, where I saw very different approaches to health promotion, I came back to Austria, and in 2008 I started to teach health, nutrition and consumer education at the University of Education in Vienna.
My personal focus is on the promotion of health and nutrition literacy for children and adolescents, considering gender and intercultural aspects as well, and in addition, advanced training courses for adults. This is certainly a big issue and there is a huge deficiency of political awareness, nationally and internationally. I sorely miss widespread and well-coordinated programmes concerning the health and nutrition of young people.
This passion to improve young people's health and lives inspires me in my daily work. To improve and develop the situation, well-structured public health programmes are imperative. Although there are many projects and steps in the right direction, I am painfully aware of the need for a sustainable health promotion policy globally. 'Health literacy for every child worldwide' is a noble aim, and international networking and cooperation are essential.
Austrian citizen. Currently working at the University of Education, Vienna, as a teacher trainer for nutrition, health and consumer education. Also working as a secondary school teacher in nutrition and home economics. Working for DOLCETA 4 (online consumer education programme of the EU). Have prepared several publications for consumer education at school, for the Austrian Ministry of Health) Member of the Centre of Didactics of the University of Education, concerning nutrition and mentoring. Also member of the Austrian thematic network on nutrition and consumer education.
christa.kausl@phwien.ac.at
I was born in Helsinki, Finland, and have always lived here. I have been working in the vitamin D field since my Master's thesis in 1979.
Vitamin D is a fascinating nutrient in that it would not be needed in the diet if we get enough sunshine. Rickets was common in Finland still in the 1950s when vitamin D prophylaxis of children was started. Although we have some sunlight during the winter months in Southern Finland, there is no UVB-irradiation for the synthesis of vitamin D in the skin. Thus, we realised that vitamin D deficiency could be quite common in Finland in all population groups. We have studied vitamin D status in all age groups and genders in Finland, as well as in collaborative projects in Europe and in Bangladesh.
Vitamin D insufficiency is indeed very common in the world. We have focused on vitamin D status in relation to bone health and studied different ways to improve it, taking into account different food habits. Lately we have also focused on other nutrients in relation to bone health as well as vitamin D and other health outcomes. Although I have focused on mainly on specific nutrients I have always had the public health nutrition aspect as a target for our research.
Finnish citizen. Currently head of department and adjunct professor, university lecturer in nutrition, department of food and environmental sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. Involved in nutrition policy in Finland and Scandinavia. Association founding member.
christel.lamberg-allardt@helsinki.fi
I developed an interest in food systems, sustainability, and public health through a series of incremental realisations. During my undergraduate and master's training, I learned about nutrition education techniques and behaviour change interventions. I came to realise, however, that much of this area seemed to be focused solely on individual changes to improve health. I also noticed that many colleagues around me seemed to believe that real change could only be achieved through enhanced personal responsibility for health.
This never really explained the whole picture for me. It wasn't until I began a postdoctoral research assistantship under Dr. Kelly Brownell at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, that I learned just how important environmental and policy factors are in determining an individual's ability to remain healthy and fit. During my time at the Rudd Center, I developed the belief that personal or individual responsibility for health really can be achieved only when the food and physical activity environments are built to support individual efforts at being healthy. That is, only when social responsibility for health comes first can personal responsibility follow.
Once I became an assistant professor, I realised I needed to move my focus further upstream, considering not only health outcomes as end results, but also taking into consideration the very sources of our food and their availability to various populations. This meant considering seriously not only how healthy our food supply was, but also the ethical and sustainability-related implications of its production. As such, I now focus on local food production and various mechanisms to improve access to these nutritious whole foods for low-income populations. I also work to discover ways in which local, alternative food systems can become viable in the locations in which they operate.
US citizen. Currently Assistant Professor of Nutrition at Arizona State University (ASU), and affiliated faculty of the School of Sustainability at ASU. Am conducting US Department of Agriculture-funded research focused on improving access to local farmers' markets through food assistance programmes and related technology.
Christopher.Wharton@asu.edu
I grew up in Chile, got my medical degree there, began an academic career in 1970, and left for the USA due to the military coup in early 1974. My first job in the USA was working as a public nutrition professor in the international programme of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.
I started to travel to Africa in 1975, and worked a year in Cameroun in 1980 helping to prepare their five-year nutrition plan. I then moved to New Orleans, to Tulane University's School of Public Health, and taught in the department of nutrition for ten years, before moving to Nairobi where I was an advisor in the Ministry of Health. Seven years there got me into extensive consulting in Africa, often on nutritional issues. In 1995 moved to Vietnam where I worked for two and a half years in the Ministry of Health as a senior primary health care advisor.
Many years of touching the reality on the ground, in Latin America, then the USA, then Africa and Asia, has made me understand that the real challenge is in the social and political determinants of malnutrition. I have devoted my writings and teaching to that. Over the years, I have found an important shift in my colleagues' attitude and understanding towards acknowledging the basic causes of malnutrition. But yet I see little happening as a result. I submit that it is our guild's lack of experience in the political arena that explains this dichotomy. I devote much of my energy to bridge this gap, and am a fervent advocate of empowering claim holders to demand needed changes from duty bearers. Nutrition is a perfect port of entry for that. Equity, social justice and people's empowerment in a human rights sense is what really will make a difference.
There is no alternative but to deal with nutrition problems as indivisibly linked to social, political and environmental problems. We need to address them as such. The question is: are we all prepared to do that? The answer, in my view, decides whether we are part of the solution or part of the problem. Travelling and living in different parts of the world has reinforced my conviction that we need to get down from our academic ivory towers, and need to change the curricula of our young and upcoming colleagues, to give them the tools to act in such a context. To me, public health nutrition cannot be anything but that.
Chilean, US and German citizen, living and working in and from Vietnam since 1995. Public nutrition training since residency in pediatrics in Chile in the early 1970s. Lived seven years in Kenya. Currently freelance consultant (over 100 consultancies), and member of the steering council of the People's Health Movement (PHM).Adjunct associate professor of international health, Tulane School of Public Health, New Orleans.
My interests focus now on the human right to health and to nutrition. I coordinate PHM's global campaign for the right to health. Extensive nutrition and health consulting experience in over 50 countries in four continents. Guest editor of two issues of the UN System Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN) News. One book on human rights, and over 55 articles in refereed journals. Currently author of an occasional internet column, the Human Rights Reader.
cschuftan@phmovement.org
Taking a broad view of different aspects has been part of my life's experience. I had the privilege to grow up on a farm and go to school in the city. This allowed me to see my then small world from the rural and also the urban perspectives. After school I was an apprentice and journeyman in different regions in Germany and Switzerland as a gardener, which deepened my insights in nature in general and my knowledge about the practical aspects of food production in particular. My university training at Capital University, Columbus, Ohio in chemistry, and the University of Minnesota in microbiology and biochemistry including nutrition science, was a contrasting theoretical programme.
After twelve years in the new world (USA), working among others at the University of California, Los Angeles (with the biochemist and Nobel laureate Paul Boyer), and surrounded by obesity, I worked for five years with malnourished children in Thailand –two totally different worlds. After returning to Germany in 1974 I taught students – also from abroad – and carried out research projects in various countries around the globe, which has kept my view open and comprehensive. My interest in wholesome nutrition, vegetarianism and nutrition ecology reflects my concern about the sustainability of our food systems and ways of life – and the future of mankind. This concern was the deciding factor to initiate together with Geoffrey Cannon the concept of The New Nutrition Science project.
German citizen. Former professor of nutrition (developing countries), University of Giessen, 1978-1998. Member of the board of several foundations, scientific organizations and journals. Advisor to the German Ministry of Technical Cooperation. Former Treasurer of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS). Co-convenor, IUNS initiative on the New Nutrition Science project. Author/co-author of 30 books including Human Nutrition (with Ibrahim Elmadfa); Wholesome Nutrition; Vegetarianism; Nutrition ecology; Bioactive Substances in Foods. Forthcoming book (with Geoffrey Cannon) The New Nutrition Science (Wiley-Blackwell 2010). Association founding member.
ClausLeitzmann@aol.com
I was born on 29 November 1918 in Salem, Tamil Nadu, almost three decades before India became an independent nation and subsequently by far the largest democracy in the world. So I celebrated my 90th birthday in 2008. I received my MD from the University of Madras (now Chennai) in my home state, in 1945. Ever since then I have dedicated my life to public health, and specifically to nutrition. Nutrition is more than a national concern. It is a global human concern. It is this vision that has guided my entire long working life.
As in other areas of life, I have always believed that the Indian experience has much to teach other nations. It has been a source of great satisfaction to me that this vision is now shared by very many colleagues in South-East Asia and also, judging from my international experience, by many others in Asia generally, and in the Americas, Europe, Africa and elsewhere. My professional life began around the time the United Nations was born, and it has been my privilege to serve on very many UN expert committees concerned with public health.
My own research studies have shown that nutrition is a major factor in human development, and therefore in the development of nations. Studies of the pathogenesis of protein-energy malnutrition, and the nutritional rehabilitation of children with this condition, paved the way for the management of severe protein-energy malnutrition in children, and for food supplementation programmes targeted to the vulnerable segments of the population. I helped to ensure that India was probably the first low-income country to draw up its own recommended dietary allowances. I also emphasised the importance of publishing and popularising details of the nutritive value of Indian foods. My research work over the years has led to numerous publications in international and Indian journals.
As director of the National Institute of Nutrition in Hyderabad from 1963-73, I helped to nurture it into an internationally renowned research institution. Subsequently, as director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research, I attempted to orient the nation's medical research programmes to reflect emerging problems. In addition, as the founder president of the Nutrition Society of India, and of the Nutrition Foundation of India (a not-for-profit organisation based in New Delhi), I have been able to guide nutrition policies designed to improve the health of the Indian population.
I have had the pleasure and privilege of meeting, and discussing issues related to nutrition, with international scientists in many forums. Among the important positions I have been honoured to hold are the following: president of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences from 1975 to 1979; chairman, the regional advisory committee on medical research, WHO, from 1975 to 1980; chairman, technical committee of the World Health Assembly in the 1970s; member, WHO global advisory committee on medical research from 1977 to 1980; member, the WHO/FAO nutrition expert panel for over thirty years from the 1970s; and chairman, the Indian national committee on science and technology task force on nutrition in 1973. I also served the Indian National Science Academy as its council member from 1969 to 1971.
Among the many awards and honours I have been privileged to receive, the one I cherish most is the Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1987. I also feel privileged to have had my work recognised by the Indian government with the award of Padma Bhushan in 2003.
Among other awards and honours are the following: honorary fellow of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore and the Indian National Academy of Medical Science. Honorary member of the American Institute of Nutrition. Basanti Devi Amir Chand prize, 1954; Basanti Devi Amir Chand prize (Senior) of the Indian Council of Medical Research, 1960; Amrut Mody research award, 1972; Dr BC Roy national award, 1974; Ambhuj Nath Bose prize of the Royal College of Physicians, London, 1975; Ademola prize of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 1976; WHO 'Health for All' medal, 1988; International Union of Nutrition Sciences (IUNS) award, 1989. First honorary life member of the Association.
nutritionfoundationofindia@gmail.com
My early life was spent in Minnesota in the midwest of the US, where food and agriculture are major parts of life and culture. Minnesota is a large agricultural state and also home to many food companies, including Pillsbury and Cargill.
Based on my early life experiences and my education in biology and nutrition, my real interest in public health nutrition began when I travelled abroad and saw the vast discrepancies between income and health in low-income countries. Realising that food availability and the ability to be healthy or not was so intimately connected to one's social standing and income prompted me to view nutrition as more than a scientific pursuit, but also as a social pursuit.
My first experience with public health nutrition was as a graduate student studying metabolic risk factors for obesity in stunted children from the favelas of São Paulo.
Nutrition is not simply a scientific discipline, it is a reflection of how society views its members. Thus, understanding and promoting a humane access to healthy foods is a core aspect of public health nutrition. Without this emphasis, seeing food as a simple commodity that has no place in the continuum of human health and human rights, means that the marginalised and poorest members of the world community are likely to fail to achieve their social and biological potential. Furthermore, public health nutrition is much more than a discourse, it involves meaningful research, education, and outreach to all members of society.
US citizen.Associate Professor and chair of the Department of Nutritional Sciences School of Environmental and Biological Sciences Rutgers University. I am the principal investigator of a project in Brazil that aims to determine the role of maternal diet and body composition on fetal growth and neonatal body composition. We are following the pregnancies of more than 400 women by measuring the growth patterns of the developing fetuses. I am also the principal investigator of a population study on dietary changes and economic development in Bulgaria. This study looks at the relationship between diet and the arrival of large supermarkets as well as dietary changes associated with economic crises.
dhoffman@aesop.rutgers.edu
I am founding director of and professor at the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa (UWC). I am a specialist paediatrician with postgraduate qualifications in public health. I have been on the academic staff of the medical schools of the Universities of Zimbabwe and Natal, and have 30 years experience of health policy and programme development in Zimbabwe and South Africa. I have worked as a health advisor to OXFAM in Zimbabwe, and advised several governments as well as other non-government organisations and UN agencies in primary health care, child health and nutrition, and health human resources. I have published extensively in these fields as well as on the political economy of health, including on structural adjustment and development aid. I am internationally recognized as an advocate for primary health care and health equity in Africa.
Since I assumed the position of director, the school of public health at UWC has expanded from 2 to over 50 staff, with around 250 masters' and 30 PhD students from about 20 African countries, an annual research income of approximately 20 million Rand, and a recently completed new building funded by a philanthropic foundation.
South African citizen. MB and ChB medical degrees at Birmingham, 1969. DCH Diploma in child health, 1972. MRCP Member of the Royal College of Physicians since 1974. DTPH Diploma in tropical public health, with credit. My thesis was titled The Underdevelopment of Health: a critique of Rhodesia's Health Services. Completed joint courses in epidemiology and medical statistics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 1988.
Zimbabwe medical adviser to OXFAM 1980-1988, responsible for establishing and coordinating OXFAM's health work in Zimbabwe. Have been successively lecturer, senior lecturer and then associate professor in the departments of paediatrics and child health, and of community medicine at the University of Zimbabwe. Am now Director of the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), Bellville, South Africa, where I have worked since 1993. Deputy Dean of the faculty of community and health sciences at UWC, 2000-2003.
Recent appointments also include the following. Heath Clark visiting lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 2004-2005. Honorary Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 2005-2007. Adjunct Professor at the Centre for International Health, University of Bergen, 2005-2009. Visiting Fellow at the Globalization/Management Department, Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa, Canada, 2005. Member of the Steering Committee of the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition, 2002-2006. Member of the Knowledge Network of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health.
I am a long-standing member of the People's Health Movement (PHM) and am a member of its global steering council, and managing editor of the its Global Health Watch 2.
Member of committees advising South African provincial and national ministers of health, 1994-1996 and 2010 respectively. Principal investigator and senior medical consultant to UNICEF and the South African Department of Health nutrition directorate for the project: Capacity Development of Medical Doctors and Senior Managers in South Africa for the Management of Severe Acute Malnutrition, 2009-2010. Consultant to World Vision International on briefing paper : 'The missing link: saving children's lives through family and community care', for UN General Assembly Summit on Progress towards Millennium Development Goals, New York, September 2010
Am frequently invited as a plenary speaker at national and international scientific meetings and have made over 250 invited presentations. Examples: WHO-convened 20th anniversary of Alma Ata Conference, 1998; Congress of World Federation of Public Health Associations, 2009; Congress of Federation of European Societies of Tropical Medicine and International Health, 2009; European Commission Conference on Global Health, 2010.
Co-author of various books and monographs. These include the following. The Struggle for Health: Medicine and the Politics of Underdevelopment. Macmillan, 1985. Reprinted five times up to 1992. Questioning the Solution: the Politics of Primary Health Care and Child Survival. HealthWrights. Palo Alto CA, 1997. Fatal Indifference: The G8, Africa and Global Health. University of Cape Town Press, 2004. Socioeconomic Stress, Health and Child Nutritional Status in Zimbabwe at a Time of Economic Structural Adjustment – A three year longitudinal study, Research Report No. 105, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala, 1998. Child Health and Poverty, Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre (CHIP) Report no. 10, Save the Children UK, 2004.
sandersdav5845@gmail.com
In the South, public health is often a very serious business. It is bound to be a central concern of government. Born in 1960 in São Paulo, I was brought up and lived my teens during the hard years of military dictatorship between the mid-1960s and mid-1980s. Like everybody of my student generation, I soon learned that when living under such regimes, saying what you really think, and even just hanging around with friends, can be dangerous. At that time, some student and other leaders in Brazil died defending their ideals and beliefs in social justice and human rights.
This experience has made a lifelong impression on me and my friends and colleagues from those years. Democracy, freedom of political expression and speech, equality, and the right of equal access to public goods, are precious and often have to be fought for. And that's what we did. This was the context within which I chose to work on food and nutrition problems and opportunities. I found out that there was an undergraduate course on nutrition at the University of São Paulo. On my first day at USP, I decided to commit myself to public health nutrition.
Since then I have had almost 25 years of professional experience in food security and nutrition policies and programmes. This has included extensive experience in government, developing, implementing and evaluating rights-based nutrition programmes at the country level. Working as Director of Nutrition for my Government I learnt how important it is for economically developing countries to act supranationally in nutrition, creating strong bonds and networks with other countries. In this way it is possible to maintain a high level political dialogue to voice concerns, experiences and needs to the international nutrition community, to actively influence the global agenda, and to ensure that international assistance is responsive to actual country needs. My experience as a mother of three children – all boys – has also shaped my thinking about food and nutrition in the world we live in now.
Brazilian citizen. MSc from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; PhD from the University of São Paulo. After my MSc I worked with UNICEF in Africa. From 1998 to 2008 I was a researcher, then senior lecturer, in public health nutrition at the University of Brasília. My work there, with colleagues, included development and implementation of the first food security and nutrition policy blueprint for the Americas. While retaining my university position, from 1998 to 2003 I helped to create and then was director of the food and nutrition policy unit (CGPAN) at the Ministry of Health in Brasília. Within Brazil my work included working with Minister of Health José Serra on national programmes designed to ensure household food security in impoverished communities. I was responsible for developing in consultation with main stakeholders Brazil's official food and nutrition policy and all derived programmes, including implementing the Brazilian dietary guidelines, micronutrient malnutrition interventions, food assistance and cash-transfer programmes. With colleagues I developed and advocated the position of Brazil and countries from the South on infant and young child feeding as Brazilian representative on this topic at WHO meetings; this is now the basis of the UN Global Strategy.
In 2004 I became Director of the Nutrition for Health and Development Department of WHO in Geneva. During this time I was vice-chair of the UN System Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN). In December 2007 I was seconded by WHO to Rome as co-ordinator of the REACH initiative headed by the UN Food Programme, designed to alleviate child hunger and undernutrition. I am now back in WHO in Geneva, working on country-focused nutrition capacity development. This project looks at building technical skills, and also leadership and strategic management capacities which, in my view, are the most important way to generate lasting change. Association founding member.
coitinhod@who.int
I was born in a rural community of Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso. I guess when you grew up in a remote community, everything seems normal until you get exposed to a new learning and cultural experience. In my village, people were fatalist. They strongly believed that there is nothing humans can do to avoid death since the will is that of the Lord. For them, a disease including malnutrition was not related to biological factors under human control, but most often to sorcerer or ancestor punishment.
As soon as I gained scientific knowledge at school, I started questioning this perception. I was particularly confused by traditional interpretation of some issues such as goitre, kwashiorkor and malaria. At the same time, I was fascinated by traditional strategies used to address some issues and how some of them can be linked to scientific concepts. I then planned to become a medical doctor to further understand disease and help to reduce the high mortality rate. However, it was too expensive for a rural student to complete a seven year university degree without a scholarship.
As an alternative option, I decided to study biology at the University of Ouagadougou to better understand the human body and its diseases. After the first two years, I was given an opportunity to complete an honours degree in food technology and human nutrition through a partnership between my university and Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
As an undergraduate student, I was strongly influenced by two courses, on dietary habits and nutrition intervention. I then realised that nutritional deficiencies were so widespread in my country that the only way to make a significant contribution was to address the problem in the entire population, always keeping in mind traditional perceptions. My interest for public health nutrition originated from there. The global nutrition training program of SIDA, the Swedish International Development Agency I attended in Uppsala (2003) strengthened my faith that public health approach in nutrition is the most relevant option for Africa.
My dream to become a qualified public health nutritionist came true when I was awarded a PhD scholarship by CIDA the (Canadian International Development Agency) scholarship. I then completed a PhD degree with the public health nutrition group at Université Laval (Québec, Canada) where I worked on a dietary intervention to improve the iron status of preschool orphan and vulnerable children in Burkina Faso. For my postdoctoral training, I was fortunate to work under the supervision of a nutrition anthropologist (Noreen Willows) within an interdisciplinary team, to understand determinants of obesity and develop community-culturally situated intervention, using an ecological model, among children in two different Canadian Aboriginal communities. This experience has strongly influence my current view of public health nutrition.
My professional experience started in Burkina Faso in its national nutrition centre. I joined the division of food control and applied human nutrition of the National Public Health Laboratory (Burkina Faso) to work as the head of the food microbiology and hygiene unit for three years before undertaking my PhD studies. Since 2005, I have been working to understand and improve nutrition of children in vulnerable communities in a global context, with a particular focus on micronutrient deficiencies in low-income countries and obesity in Canadian immigrant and Aboriginal populations.
To overcome the challenge of global malnutrition, we must move beyond biochemical and clinical concepts in nutrition, so as to understand the values, beliefs and practices of the target population, and its decision making processes, and incorporate that into our practice. I understand public health nutrition as such an approach. It is and should be transdisciplinary community driven teamwork, whose purpose is to understand and address the multilevel risk factors of malnutrition in a population using integrated approaches, including biological, psychological, cultural, socioeconomical and environmental. It should be guided by community members for cultural appropriateness, and relevance of programme intervention at all stages, from design to implementation, evaluation and dissemination. Professionals from different disciplines can build on community values and traditions to achieve a common goal using a framework that integrates and transcends their respective discipline perspectives.
Burkina Faso citizen. Currently living and working in Canada where I have permanent resident status. I have just begun an academic career and recently joined the University of Ottawa's Interdisciplinary school of health sciences that thrives on interdisciplinarity, to analyse and integrate knowledge and experiences from various disciplines to address health issues.
I am also adjunct professor in International Community Nutrition at Université Laval (Canada). As a young academic, I am hoping to build on the huge scientific heritage passed one by our elders, to contribute to the promotion and advancement of the field and to capacity building in the most affected populations.
I am a member of the Canadian Nutrition Society, the African Nutrition Society, the Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research, the Canadian Society for International Health and the Canadian Obesity Network. I am an alumnus of the African Graduate Nutrition Students Network, a graduate of the Global Nutrition programme and of the African Nutrition Leadership Programme.
dsanou@uottawa.ca
