Members' Profiles E - K
Food and nutrition have always been a deep passion of mine. But throughout my early schooling, it was the context of nutrition that always drew my attention. Subsequently as I studied nutritional sciences at university, the global realities of disparity – why some us are so well fed and others starve – became questions for which I sought answers. The writings of Susan George, Frances Moore Lappé, and the many others they influenced, became my mainstays.
As a child my parents had instilled in me a strong sense of social justice. These underlying principles have always been the basis for how I defined my life. I have been fortunate in finding a partner who shares these values.
My first task as an international nutritionist was a position at the Ahmadu Bello University in northern Nigeria, as lecturer in nutrition in the department of pediatrics. My clinical role of setting up a treatment unit for malnourished children and their mothers, became the life-changing experience for my future. It was here that the results of power and economic disparity, and the injustices of greedy corporate behaviour, were characterised as 'Nestle syndrome' and 'baby-bottle disease'. It was here that mothers wrapped their dead babies in a cloth to carry them home, because even our rehydration unit could not save them. These mothers, who had believed in the corporate lies of healthy, robust babies, discovered too late that the tinned white powder could be deadly.
The birth of the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) in 1979 was the activist response to such outrageous greed. The words Dr. Cicely Williams spoke in 1939 from Singapore, Malaysia, '…misguided propaganda on infant feeding should be punished as the most criminal form of sedition, and those deaths should be regarded as murder' remain true today. For the past 20 years, as a nutritionist, specialising in infant and young child nutrition, I have worked as an advocate on behalf of mothers and children, always focused on the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding.
Canadian citizen. In 1980 I became a founding member of IBFAN's Canadian group, the Infant Feeding Action Coalition (INFACT Canada). In 1990 I became its national director. In Canada my responsibilities have including the following. I have maintained a network of those working in maternal and child nutrition. My job involves me always being informed and active in national policy setting and implementation. Addressing the implementation of various UN instruments, especially the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, WHO World Health Assembly resolutions, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I am also a spokesperson to the media, a writer on infant maternal and child feedings concerns, and a speaker at conferences.
Internationally, I have participated in the Steering Committee of the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition, as convenor or alternate of the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition Civil Society Group. Our group in Canada is a core global partner of the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA), and also a core partner of the joint IBFAN-WABA Global Breastfeeding Initiative for Child Survival. IBFAN is the proud recipient in 1998 of the Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative Nobel Prize.
esterken@infactcanada.ca
I was born in a low-income country in a rural village. I therefore experienced some measure of poverty and all its ramifications. I also lived at a time of civil war and so I saw children and mothers die. This experience has not left me. I wished we could turn the hands of the clock back, but it was not possible.
My journey started over 33 years ago in the hilly, serene and idyllic community of Nsukka in Enugu state, where I obtained my DPhil degree from the University of Nigeria. My interest in the lives of indigent and malnourished people in Nsukka prompted me into the practice of community and public health nutrition. I started being committed to it in 1976, when I entered Columbia University, New York, to do my Masters degree in community nutrition and public health. I graduated in October 1977.
Since then I have had a serious commitment to public health nutrition, because I came back to my country to meet what I left. I came back in 1978 and since then I have done work in the area. Upon coming back from the United States in 1978; I worked and toured all the health centres in the rural communities of the Nsukka local government area. My philosophy is to see how we can use our traditional foods to improve the nutrition and health of the indigenous groups in our communities. I am happily married to CE Okeke, professor of solid state physics and renewable energy, with children – and many grand children.
Nigerian citizen, Professor of community and public health nutrition, department of home science, nutrition & dietetics, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in Enugu State. I am currently working on indigenous peoples food systems for health promotion – Igbo case study 2009. This is an international case study, sponsored by CIHR, CINE, McGill Canada.
Awarded British Council fellowship at the University of London. Also awarded certificate of membership as a foundation member of the United Nations University institute for natural resources in Africa. The first PhD student I supervised got the vice-chancellor's postgraduate award. Member of the New York Academy of Sciences. I have also served as principal investigator for several projects with the United Nations, and McGill University, Canada. Have been awarded the distinguished academic Noble international award.
Fellow, Nutrition Society of Nigeria. I have served as vice president of the Nutrition Society of Nigeria, and as member of Council. I have been an external examiner within and outside Nigeria for both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Am a member of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences task force on indigenous food systems since 2004. Am a member of over ten learned societies both nationally and internationally.
I have supervised over 100 undergraduate projects in various topics in nutrition with emphasis on community and public health nutrition, traditional foods and child nutrition. I have also graduated over 22 post graduate students, and over 20 postgraduate students are under my supervision right now. I have published over 60 journal articles in national and international journals. I have attended and presented over 90 papers. To mention a few presentations: at the International Congres of Nutrition (International Union of Nutritional Sciences), the Federation of African Nutritional Sciences, the International Nutritional Anemia Consultative Group and the International Vitamin A Consultative Group, the Micronutrient Forum, the African Nutritional Epidemiological Conference, and the International Conference on Dietary Activity Methods.
elizchinwe@gmail.com
I was born in rural Vermont in the US, and spent the first six years of my life on a farm, enjoying clean air, access to nature, and ski trails. In 1965, my family immigrated to South Africa, but was quickly disillusioned by apartheid and returned to the United States the following year. In 1971 my parents joined the US Peace Corps, and as their dependent children, my siblings and I attended high schools in Malaysia and Swaziland. Living on a volunteer income of less than $75/month for almost four years was a life-changing experience for all of us. Leaving a fairly typical, middle-class US way of life, we were suddenly immersed in local cultures and learned two foreign languages, Malay and siSwati. I saw people begging for food on our street every day, and played with children who had only one meal a day, at best.
On a visit to India when I was 13, I watched women collecting grains of rice outside of a shop, which had fallen into the gutter from a delivery truck, hoping to gather enough for the family dinner. This experience was a turning point for me: I decided to abandon my dream of becoming a cordon bleu chef, and instead devote my life to nutrition, focusing on nutrition education as a way to help people tackle poverty and overcome malnutrition.
In 1974, I entered university in the USA, studying home economics education, with a concentration in human nutrition. I hoped to be able to teach others about nutrition and health, and enable them to improve their lives through improved knowledge and skills. In 1976, my parents returned overseas to volunteer work in Papua New Guinea. As I was only 18, and nearly finished with my university studies, I took a year off, and worked on a small island near Madang, teaching local women about food, nutrition, basic health and hygiene, and child care. I also did basic dressings for the villagers, treating micronutrient deficiencies, wounds and infections that were an everyday occurrence. A year later, I returned to complete my vocational education teaching degree in Colorado.
I departed for the Solomon Islands a few weeks after graduation as a Peace Corps volunteer and worked as a home economics extension worker and teacher in an isolated province. Once again, I learned how important information and skills were to helping people help themselves, and to prevent health and nutrition problems. In late 1979, after my voluntary service ended, I took a job teaching home economics at an international school in the Himalayas. Enroot, I stopped in Thailand to visit my brother, who was a volunteer on the Lao border. The same week, half a million Cambodian refugees crossed the border into Thailand. In a second life-changing event, I signed up as a volunteer for UNHCR, and spent three months living in a war zone, advising NGOs on supplementary feeding in three large border refugee camps. I continued on to India, but after one term I returned to the Thai/Cambodian border, and signed on for an additional 18 months. There, I managed Care-Thailand's general rations, cross-border food distributions and supplementary/ therapeutic feeding programmes in four refugee camps. At the age of 23, I managed over 300 employees, and was responsible for a multi-million dollar food and nutrition programme for nearly 800,000 refugees. Most importantly, I was able to ensure that nutrition and health education were included in all feeding programmes, aimed at preventing future problems.
In 1981, convinced that I needed more knowledge to truly make a difference in the world of nutrition, I entered a Master's programme at Cornell University, graduating in 1983. My thesis focused on preparing professionals to work in nutrition programmes in emergency situations. In 1983, I travelled in Europe for 9 months, before accepting an internship at UNESCO in Paris, in the Division of Science, Health and Environment Education. For the next 18 months, I wrote several Nutrition Education Series, and created a world-wide manual for in- and out-of-school nutrition teaching and learning.
In mid-1985, I married a Frenchman, Claude Girerd. Keen to assist in the emergency sweeping Africa's horn, I departed for Gedaref, Sudan a few weeks after our wedding. There I served as UNHCR's nutrition coordinator in Eastern Sudan, advising 24 NGOs on therapeutic, supplementary feeding and general rations distributions, and managing nutrition information. Again, I was responsible for decisions affecting the nutrition and well-being of almost a million refugees. In 1986, I returned to the United States and began a PhD programme in human nutrition and occupational education administration. I travelled back to Sudan in 1987 with UNHCR to film training videos and manuals for supplementary feeding programmes in emergencies. My dissertation explored various training methods to build the capacity of health workers to implement nutrition programmes during emergencies. In 1988, shortly before graduation, I gave birth to my first daughter.
My philosophy of public health nutrition is based on the fundamental human rights to health and adequate nutritious foods. While nutrition is a basic need and the basis for all survival, growth and development, the human rights to health and adequate nutritious foods require everyone to work to guarantee it. Public health nutrition is founded on prevention and participation, and it is a platform for gathering information, creating innovations and offering services to ensure that the rights to health and adequate nutritious food are met. Involving people in the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of nutrition concerns will empower them to find the best solutions. Nutrition and health promotion work to prevent problems, including deficiencies, illness and death, safeguarding health and nutritional status. My role, as a duty bearer of human rights, is to do all that I can to ensure that all people, children, women and men, enjoy their human rights, including those of health and adequate nutritious food. Accordingly, my career and life goals are to promote innovative policies and creative approaches to unresolved social challenges, establishing effective means to improve people's well-being, and contribute to guaranteeing the basic health and nutrition rights of all individuals, and provide leadership to reduce and treat premature mortality, avoidable morbidity, malnutrition, and HIV and AIDS among children, women, and men.
US and French citizen. Permanent resident of Sweden. From 1990 to 1992, following the completion of my doctoral degree, I was a field director for Plan International in Senegal and Mali, managing large-scale integrated rural development projects. I gave birth to my second daughter in November 1991 and a few months later joined UNICEF in Bamako as nutrition project officer. In Mali, I helped to create the first national vitamin A programme, and the first local iodised salt production facility. I developed a nutrition surveillance system at national level, and designed and implemented district-level multi-sectoral nutrition programmes with local partners. Beginning in 1995, with UNICEF-Mozambique, I managed integrated health, food security and gender programmes, which transitioned from emergency to development following the end of the civil war. I gave birth to my last child in 1996, and soon after left UNICEF for a position as resident nutrition adviser to USAID in Madagascar for the OMNI (micronutrient) and LINKAGES (breastfeeding and infant/young children nutrition) projects in Madagascar. In Antananarivo, I contributed to founding the GAIN - the Intersectoral Group for Nutrition Action – a multi-sectoral nutrition coordinating group that raised the profile of nutrition nationwide and provided a platform for key nutrition actions. In 1998, I returned to UNICEF as regional advisor, nutrition and health, in South Asia, based in Kathmandu. I initiated the SEA –IDDEA group – a trans-regional IDD elimination group, involving salt producers and transporters, legislators and communication specialists, and the SANGAM, a South Asian think tank devoted to resolving the problems of iron-deficiency anaemia. I maintained the nutrition network with UNICEF, NGO and government partners, sharing experiences and knowledge through the region. I transferred to UNICEF-Hanoi in 2001, and served two years as senior project officer, health and nutrition, before moving with my family to Sweden in 2004. From January 2004 to February 2009 I consulted in emergency nutrition and health, with UNHCR, WFP, UNICEF and several private consulting firms. I led both real-time and post-evaluations in over a dozen countries, and conducted several programme planning exercises in crisis-affected and developing countries. In 2004 and 2005, I coordinated inputs from 20 agencies to establish the first interagency guidelines for health evaluations in humanitarian crises. In 2009, I joined Action Against Hunger's Hunger Watch in London, to establish innovative policies focusing on undernutrition, with an aim to eliminate acute malnutrition. I developed ACF's White Paper on Acute Malnutrition – Taking Action: Nutrition for Survival, Growth and Development - which was published in mid-2010. In March this year, I joined the faculty of Metropolitan University College in Copenhagen Denmark, as assistant professor, Global Nutrition and Health. I currently reside in Gothenburg, Sweden with my husband and son, and commute to Copenhagen where I teach students of public health nutrition policy on a full-time basis. I am active in the IASC Global Nutrition Cluster capacity development working group, and the Standing Committee on Nutrition, where I participate in the new working group on nutrition as a social movement. I am also director of a small human rights-based association called Mandamus, which aims to ensure that all children everywhere learn and know about their human rights.
egirerdbarclay@yahoo.com
My first recollection of nutrition as a subject is from the first biology class I attended in college. The teacher rated nutrition as important as general biology, and the teaching was vivid. In my early twenties I travelled for eight months to countries in South-East Asia, such as India, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Nepal. I saw just how bad the nutritional status of many communities in some of these countries was. I was shocked by the enormous socio-economic differences between these countries and the economically developed world, and how severely food insecurity affects people's lives.
I started my higher education by taking a BSc degree in biology from the University of Iceland, of which I took one year as an exchange student at the University of Newcastle in Australia. Later I started working at the unit for nutrition research at the Landspitali University Hospital and University of Iceland, where I obtained my MSc in human nutrition. I worked there as a project manager for the Icelandic part of the EU-funded Seafood Plus Young project (www.seafoodplus.org) and also tutored practical lessons in human nutrition at the University of Iceland.
After obtaining my MSc I began working as a project manager in nutrition at the Public Health Institute in Iceland. In this job we focus on public health nutrition in various settings with the main objectives to improve national food habits. In Iceland, as elsewhere in the world, much of the overall burden of disease is attributed to the usual risk factors – overweight and obesity, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, low intake of vegetables and fruits.
Public health nutritionists look very differently at things, compared with executives and politicians who take decisions and make policies that can affect nutrition and therefore health. Public health nutritionists need to have the drive to decrease this gap, between those who make the policies and those who work with nutrition. This has inspired me to work in public health nutrition and I hope I can make a difference in the future.
Icelandic citizen. MSc. in Human Nutrition, BSc. in Biology. Have attended short courses in public health at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Barcelona, and EU Basics in Public Health Nutrition in Ireland. Project manager in nutrition at the Public Health Institute of Iceland, with a focus on health promotion and prevention. Founding member of the Young Public Health Nutrition Network (Vermilion); a member of the Young Gastein network, and Icelandic networks within public health and nutrition. Association founding member.
elva@lydheilsustod.is
During my third year as a biochemistry major at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, I had an opportunity to participate in a summer programme at the food chemistry laboratory of the Institute of Nutrition, Mahidol University. I was motivated by their research to address protein-energy malnutrition among vulnerable population in rural villages. I made up my mind to pursue advanced education in nutrition-biochemistry so as to apply for a position at Mahidol University. Since the institute needed additional expertise in micronutrients, I decided to do my thesis research for my master's degree (at Brigham Young University, Utah, USA) and my doctoral degree (at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA) on the role of zinc in kidney disease and inflammatory response, respectively.
During my post-doctoral years spent at the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center. under the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), I became interested in the possible interaction of zinc and vitamin A, and was able to carry out the research in school children of north-east Thailand in collaboration with the USDA research team. With this area of interest came the training opportunity in vitamin A assessment techniques to estimate liver stores (relative and modified relative dose) and conjunctival impression cytology (CIC). In 1990, both RDR and CIC were used in the targeted vitamin A survey in the north and north-eastern region pre-school children. The overall result indicated a 20 per cent depletion of vitamin A stores.
In 1991 I witnessed for the first time, eye lesions and blindness due to severe vitamin A deficiency, among malnourished infants of 3-18 months with diarrhoea and/or pneumonia in Yala, Southern Thailand. Seeing these infants touched me to the core, and became my inspiration to work harder with my colleagues at the Ministry of Public Health to eradicate severe deficiency among disadvantaged populations in Thailand. The efforts were gratifying since there were no new cases. Overall, the problem has now been ranked as moderate to mild deficiency, for which dietary intervention should be appropriate.
Therefore, my research in later years has been steered towards bioavailability and efficacy trials of micronutrient-fortified foods and dietary diversification strategies. I believe in the work of public health nutrition, because of its impact in saving lives and improving health and development of vulnerable populations.
Thai citizen. Based in Thailand since 1985. Currently vice president for International Relations, and Associate Professor in human nutrition, at Mahidol University, and adjunct associate professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, USA. I am a member of the Micronutrient Forum steering committee, the International Zinc Nutrition Consultative Group steering committee, the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) Council, and the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS) Council. Chair of the scientific committee, IUNS International Conference on Nutrition, Bankok, 2009. Research interests include micronutrient assessment, bioavailability and metabolism; micronutrient interaction especially of vitamin A and zinc or iron and zinc, and micronutrient and immune function. Association Council member.
numdk@mahidol.ac.th
My undergraduate training was in food science, nutrition and physiology. My graduate experience included physiological studies on membrane calcium transport and physical factors controlling blood flow. One night in my laboratory I noticed that I had to wait longer for blood to clot when experimental animals were fed a high fibre diet, and my interest in the influence of nutrition on haemostasis was born.
This interest led to research on physiological effects of dietary fibre and a DSc in physiology. The work of Alexander Walker and Denis Burkitt on the relationships between dietary intakes and risk of non-communicable diseases was an inspiration. In the late 1980s I started to train Ph.D. students in Nutrition at Potchefstroom, with the help of two UK scientists, John Cummings in Cambridge and Jim Mann in Oxford.
We later did our nutrition research as part of the Africa Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research (AUTHeR) of which I was director from 1998 to 2008. In 2008 the North-West University awarded us a Centre of Excellence for Nutrition at the Potchefstroom Campus.
The co-existence and double burden of under- and over-nutrition in South Africa, exacerbated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, motivated us to focus our research on public health nutrition problems. We are looking for solutions to these problems, using systems thinking in which a holistic conceptual framework and a research approach 'from molecules to society' are integrated.
Because of our unique population structure, our social and political history, as well as the rapid demographic and epidemiological transitions taking place, South Africa offers great opportunities and challenges for research in public health nutrition. We believe that a better understanding of the basic, underlying molecular and genetic mechanisms of how diets, foods and nutrients influence health and disease will help us to design more innovative solutions for public health nutrition problems, especially for populations in transition from traditional to modern ways of life.
South African citizen. Professor in Nutrition, and Director of the Centre of Excellence for Nutrition, at the North-West University, Potchefstroom. Past President (and chair) of the Nutrition Society of South Africa. Recipient of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns Havenga prize for Medicine in 2007. Books include (editor, with Michael Gibney, Susan Lanham-New and Aedin Cassidy) Introduction to Human Nutrition (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002). Association founder member.
este.vorster@nwu.ac.za
I grew up in a Swedish-speaking family and went to a Swedish speaking school in Finland. I started my university studies in nutrition in Finnish and for the first time I gained a close contact with the majority of the Finnish speaking society in Finland. Maybe this experience started my interest in looking at health in different population groups, and to understand why we behave in different ways depending on our ethnic, cultural and other backgrounds.
Basic nutrition studies did not give answers to such questions, and therefore I have searched for knowledge from other disciplines such as epidemiology, sociology, social medicine and public health. I have worked in projects focusing on inequality in health, and I did my post-doc work at the Centre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS) in Stockholm, Sweden. My main research interest for some years now, has been to explore how socioeconomic factors shape our everyday health-related behaviour. Especially I have wanted to increase our understanding of whether inequality in health is mediated by general ways of life, including dietary patterns.
I am now working for 'Folkhälsan', a non-governmental organisation, which undertakes both research and health promotion. This gives me a special possibility to combine research and practice. After doing research on determinants of health and health behaviour for years, I now also do research within the field of health promotion. In recent years we have begun interventions in school settings to promote healthy ways of life. Currently we are involved in a European school project, 'Pro Greens', which aims to improve the fruit and vegetable consumption of 11-year-olds in ten European countries. It has been very fruitful to be involved in this kind of project, where you can share ideas and experiences with colleagues from other countries.
Finnish citizen. I am an adjunct professor (docent) in nutrition at the University of Helsinki. I work as a senior researcher at the Folkhälsan Research Centre as a leader of a research group focusing on health behaviour among schoolchildren. I am author or co-author of 58 articles in scientific journals within the field of public health, public health nutrition, and sociology of health and social medicine. I am the Finnish ambassador for the International Society of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA) since May 2008. Association founding member.
eva.roos@folkhalsan.fi
As are many Brazilians, I'm a mixture mainly of indigenous, African, Portuguese and Spanish people. My father was born in the Amazon, my mother in Rio de Janeiro, four thousand kilometres from each other. I was born in Rio but I lived almost all my childhood and adolescence in Rio's neighbour state Espírito Santo, in a city called Vila Velha (Old Village). This is where the simplest and most traditional and tastiest Brazilian fish dish comes from (the Moqueca Capixaba), traditionally prepared in an earthenware pot made from mud of a type found only in that locality, and produced by local paneleiras (pot makers). Vila Velha made me a lover of the sea and its fruits and also a lover of the hillsides that supplied us with fresh tomatoes, herbs and spices for the Moqueca, and a great variety of fruits and vegetables. I harvested fruits from the trees with my bare hands, we shared all the meals as a family, we knew what we were eating, and who was preparing the food we were about to eat.
My origins tell part of my history with food and nutrition, for my first contact were by simple and strong life experiences. The academic contact started in 1999 when I enrolled in the Nutrition undergraduate course at Rio de Janeiro State University. I immediately felt in love with every single discipline. My deep involvement also made me encourage colleagues not to give up on the course, and to see that it was part of our mission to serve our country.
My first field contact with public health nutrition was with the school food programme of the Rio de Janeiro state government in 2001. This was also my first contact with policy makers, which reinforces my sense of the political dimension of food and nutrition. Moved by this concept and by the questions that emerged from the contrasting settings and complexity of Rio, I started my Masters in Population Studies and Social Research in 2005. This gave me training in methodology and statistics, and also in social sciences and economics. This was when I started to connect social systems, macroeconomic architecture, geo-strategy and geo-politics to food and nutrition. In this way my worldview expanded profoundly.
After this training my first work was in 2006 as a national advisor to the United Nations Development Programme, within the Brazilian federal Ministry of Health. I travelled all over the country, mapping good practices on health promotion at schools. I met children, parents, executives, and policy makers, and I tasted and reported the bitter and the sweet of their realities.
In October 2006 I was hired by the National Cancer Institute of Brazil (INCA) to contribute to its mission on cancer prevention. Since then my main work at the Food, Nutrition and Cancer Division of INCA has been facilitating, encouraging, promoting and protecting healthier choices for the Brazilian people and for the planet we share.
Brazilian citizen. BSc. in Nutrition (1999-2004), MSc. in Population Studies and Social Research (2005-2007). PhD student, Collective Health, at the Institute of Social Medicine of the Rio de Janeiro State University (2009-in progress). Have worked as advisor of the United Nations Development Programme for the Brazilian Ministry of Health, supporting the development of strategies to implement nationwide actions for Surveillance of Risk Factors for Non-Communicable Diseases in Schools. Currently work in the Food, Nutrition and Cancer Division of the National Cancer Institute of Brazil (INCA) as a senior analyst for national cancer control programmes, supporting the development of health promotion strategies in multiple settings, and developing and improving local and nationwide strategies to prevent and control cancer and other NCDs by means of the promotion of healthy eating practices. Association membership under consideration.
fabiodasilvagomes@gmail.com
I grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during the 1970s. At that time there was no real concern in my family about food quality and dietetic habits. My first encounter with public health nutrition was during high school, when I read some books by George Orwell, in which poverty was a very important issue. Later I started to read about hunger and got really committed to public health nutrition.
I have done several projects with undernourished children, some of them with interventions. Nowadays I mostly work with pregnancy, mainly studying the relationship of poor pregnancies in terms of nutrition and the increased risk of unfavourable outcomes. I have organised a textbook, Nutritional Epidemiology, whose target readership is public health nutrition practitioners. I am engaged in research projects in maternal and child nutrition. I am also very interested in the relationship between mental health and nutrition.
Brazilian citizen. I am currently professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, department of nutritional epidemiology. My first degree is in nutrition, gained at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. My doctoral degree is in public health, at the University of São Paulo.
kacetal@gmail.com
Working in public health nutrition is fascinating, fulfilling and frustrating, for the same reasons. It overlaps with many of the important issues in the community – poverty and disadvantage, health disparities, globalisation, climate change – and there is a sense that public health nutritionists can make a difference. I grew up in rural Australia and commenced my nutrition career as a clinical dietician. My shift into public health nutrition came early on when I was recruited for a position as provincial nutritionist in Papua New Guinea. The experience confirmed for me the potential that action around nutrition issues has for contributing to community health and development, and set my career path.
Following graduate study in the USA, I took up a position at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. The UQ position and location has given me the opportunity for broad experience in public health nutrition, including professional postings, research, teaching, consultancy and advisory positions, and for working throughout the Asia-Pacific region, with the principal areas being Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the USA.
I have a longstanding interest in using research to strengthen nutrition policy and programming, extending across topics such as food insecurity, food systems, micronutrient malnutrition, and cancer prevention. My particular expertise is related to nutrition monitoring and surveillance, and programme/ policy evaluation.
My current research focuses on three main areas. First, implementation research, to identify the contextual and organisational factors that lead to successful delivery of nutrition programmes/services. Second, examination of the extent of heterogeneity and change in nutrition conditions across communities, and the implications of these for policy and programmes. Third, assessment of the effectiveness of research into cancer prevention and related chronic diseases.
Nutrition is an integrative science. The challenge for public health nutrition is that it is both integrative and collaborative. That is, the major advances in the field will come from multi-disciplinary research, and cross-sector action.
Australian citizen. Currently associate professor and head of the nutrition unit in the School of Population Health, University of Queensland, Brisbane. I have been at the University of Queensland since 1989, with a range of appointments and responsibilities over this time including: Head of the international health division in the School of Population Health, Director of the unit contracted to develop and manage the Australian food and nutrition monitoring system, and an honorary appointment as scientific fellow with the Australia New Zealand Food Authority.
g.marks@sph.uq.edu.au
Anybody who grows up in England, the first country to be industrialised, gets a particular taste of food and view of nutrition. My secondary boarding school was Christ's Hospital, whose medical officer (before my time) was GE Friend. His do-it-himself epidemiology, reported to the authorities, prompted the compulsory fortification of margarine. My subject was history as taught by Michael Cherniavsky, who encouraged his pupils to think for themselves. My main university subject was philosophy which, as taught by Charles Taylor and Michael Dummett, made me try to think straight. I am still working on this. After university for many years I worked on magazines, beginning with the weekly review New Society as edited by Tim Raison. This trained me to try to be clear, and to think about what readers want and – not always the same thing – need.
In the early 1980s I began to specialise in writing about food and nutrition policy and practice, and also writing and action on fitness and health. (See below). This made me learn about food systems and what and who drive them. One result was The Food Scandal, co-written with Caroline Walker (1984), and then later (1987) The Politics of Food. As from 1992, I have worked for the World Cancer Research Fund and also its affiliate the American Institute for Cancer Research, whose President and CEO is Marilyn Gentry.
Now I am living and working in the South, in a middle-income country with gross contrasts between rich and impoverished communities. Since moving to Brazil in 2000, my idea of food and nutrition is transformed.
Brazil has an extraordinarily strong and maintained tradition in public health. This remains embodied in environmental, social, economic and political contexts, in a very large country where community and family values still survive. In 2000-2002 I worked for the Brazilian federal Ministry of Health with Association Council and founder members Denise Coitinho and Elisabetta Recine. There I wrote the initial drafts of the current official national dietary guidelines. Also, I had special responsibility to advocate the Brazilian position on infant and young child nutrition, and in particular breastfeeding, as a delegate to the 2001 WHO Executive Board meeting. The Brazilian Resolution, supported, developed and improved in consultation with many countries notably in the South, became the basis for the current UN Global Strategy.
The challenge of this century is how to sustain the earth's physical, living and human resources, all together, and so leave a good inheritance. This is our task, in challenging times. Nutrition is about health. It is also about the future of the biosphere.
UK citizen, Brazilian resident. Chief Health Policy Advisor, the Americas, American Institute for Cancer Research. International Advisor, World Cancer Research Fund. WCRF Director of Science, 1990s. Chief editor, WCRF/AICR reports on prevention of cancer, 2007, and public policy implications of the prevention of cancer and other chronic diseases, 2009 (see www.dietandcancerreport.org).
Work in food and nutrition policy began in 1980, when an assistant editor of The Sunday Times. Since then have worked with civil society organizations (Sustain, the Caroline Walker Trust, the Guild of Food Writers, the Soil Association); for health organisations (WCRF/AICR); for government (the federal government of Brazil, and as a representative of the UK and then Brazil at WHO assemblies); and for the UN (advisor to WHO, active in civil society section of the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition).Associated work in health and fitness. For ten years, wrote the monthly Fun Runner column for Running magazine. In 1983 was founder of the Serpentine Running Club (www.serpentine.org.uk) which now has 2,250 members. Once upon a time ran 10 marathons slowly and skiied one very slowly.
Earlier, was at Oxford (Balliol). Between 1962 and 1979 worked as an editor (New Society), publications executive (International Publishing Corporation); designer (The Spectator, The Listener); TV producer (Granada TV); and as a BBC head of department (editor of its programme journal Radio Times). Various national awards for newspaper and magazine design, writing and campaigns.
As well as my other work, in the 2000s associate editor, then a deputy editor, Public Health Nutrition 2003-2010; writer of its Out of the Box column 2003-2009. Around 60 papers and other contributions available on PubMed. Co-convenor with Association founder member Claus Leitzmann of the New Nutrition Science project. Drafted the 2009 Istanbul Declaration on the nature, purpose and future of public health, for the World Federation of Public Health Associations (see www.wfpha.org). Recent books include The Fate of Nations (2003), and the new edition of Dieting Makes You Fat (2008). Forthcoming book, The New Nutrition Science (co-chief editor), Wiley-Blackwell. Association Publications Secretary, and as such editor of the Association website.
GeoffreyCannon@aol.com
In the 1970s, as a new professor of political science at the University of Hawai'i, I worked on ocean policy. The university awarded me a sabbatical for 1977-1978 to study fisheries as a model for global resource management. As I was about to start a desk study on fish businesses in the Pacific region, I got a call from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN in Rome, asking me to do a field study on South Pacific fisheries management. This resulted in a consultancy with FAO from September 1977 to February 1978.
This led to publication of my first book, The Politics of Pacific Islands Fisheries, in 1980. It included a chapter on the importance of fish in the diets of people in the Pacific region. The consultancy and the book led to my being invited to Norway in 1983 to participate in an Expert Consultation on Fisheries and Nutrition organised by FAO. The meeting in Norway led to a series of consultancies on fisheries and nutrition with FAO from 1984 to 1990. This work resulted in a number of articles, and a book, Fish Food, and Hunger: The Potential of Fisheries for Alleviating Malnutrition, which came out in 1987.
Through this period I gave increasing attention to nutrition issues. My book on The Political Economy of Hunger: The Silent Holocaust came out in 1984. As I came to appreciate the close linkage between nutrition and child mortality, I began a stream of work centred on children. My book on The Politics of Children's Survival came out in 1987, and Children in the International Political Economy came out in 1995.
I began to focus on the human right to adequate food in the early 1990s. One of my first projects was planning a small side meeting on children's nutrition rights to be held in Rome at the time of the International Conference on Nutrition in Rome in 1992. For this purpose I created and became coordinator of the Task Force on Children's Nutrition Rights. On learning that Asbjørn and Wenche Barth Eide and their colleagues were planning something similar, through the new World Alliance on Nutrition and Human Rights (WANAHR), we joined forces and planned the event together. The WANAHR meeting in Rome in December 1992 was probably the first public presentation of the idea of the human right to adequate food
I was invited to speak on 'Strategies for Implementing Children's Nutrition Rights' to a meeting in March 1994 of United Nations Administrative Committee on Coordination/ Subcommittee on Nutrition (ACC/SCN) at UNICEF Headquarters. This became a major turning point because it led to my active participation in the work of the ACC/SCN and its successor, the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN). I worked closely with SCN's group on Civil Society Organizations and SCN's Working Group on Nutrition, Ethics, and Human Rights, and also with WANAHR.
I was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for research on the human right to adequate food at the Norwegian Institute for Human Rights and the Institute for Nutrition Research at the University of Oslo in fall 1998. It was then that I started to write Freedom from Want: The Human Right to Adequate Food. The book did not come out until 2005, after having benefited from my teaching on the topic in various contexts, including short courses at Central European University in Budapest. A no-cost download of the book is available at http://press.georgetown.edu/pdfs/9781589010550.pdf
With funding from the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research and encouragement from SCN's Working Group on Nutrition, Ethics, and Human Rights, I edited a book on Global Obligations on the Right to Food that came out in 2008.
Having explored other approaches to dealing with the massive problem of hunger in the world, I have now turned my attention to ways in which local communities might take meaningful initiatives, and be supported in that by national governments and the global community. As a result, my latest book, Ending Hunger Worldwide, is due out from Paradigm Publishers of Boulder, Colorado around the end of 2010. It explores the idea that in strong communities, where people care about one another's well-being, no one goes hungry.
My approach centres on finding remedies for social problems, especially finding ways to strengthen the weak in the face of the strong. I work on human rights, international relations, peace, development, and environmental issues, with a special focus on nutrition and children. My work has been propelled forward by a long list of supporters, including Asbjørn Eide, Wenche Barth Eide, Ted Greiner, Sidney Holt, David James, Urban Jonsson, Uwe Kracht, Michael Latham, Arne Oshaug, Geoffrey Cannon, Margret Vidar, and many others. They supported even when they disagreed. Many students have helped to clarify my thinking as well. I am grateful to all of them.
US citizen. Professor in the department of political science at the University of Hawai'i. Books include The Political Economy of Hunger: The Silent Holocaust (New York: Praeger, 1984); The Politics of Children's Survival (New York: Praeger, 1991); Children in the International Political Economy (New York: Macmillan/St. Martin's, 1995); Freedom from Want: The Human Right to Adequate Food (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2005); (editor) Global Obligations for the Right to Food (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008); Ending Hunger Worldwide (Boulder, Colorado: Paradigm Publishers, 2010 forthcoming).
Co-convenor of the Commission on International Human Rights of the International Peace Research Association. Have worked as a consultant with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations Children's Fund, and several civil society organizations. Member of the working group on nutrition, ethics, and human rights of the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition.
Website: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kent
kent@hawaii.edu
I have always been fascinated by the diverse food and nutrition practices of the world's peoples, and how food becomes available in so many different ways in different cultures. I grew up on a small asparagus and strawberry farm in southern New Jersey in the United States, surrounded by immigrant Italians and Caribbean migrant farm workers. They put new tastes on the foods familiar on our 'Pennsylvania Dutch' table that originated with our dairy and chicken-beef-pork-farming relatives, and their gardens and orchards, in Pennsylvania and New York State.
My university training was at Pennsylvania State University, Oregon State University and the University of California at Berkeley. I was steeped in learning about issues related to food and culture; dietetics and health promotion; and food science and anthropology. During doctoral studies at UC Berkeley I first engaged with nutrition of Indigenous Peoples – looking at strontium and lead in the food environment of the Hopi of Arizona. Then as a professor of nutrition at the University of British Columbia (1976-1985) and McGill University (1985-current) I expanded this unique niche of research and teaching with many outstanding colleagues and collaborators engaged with the indigenous world.
Now as Emerita Professor, still guiding students and research activities, I realise how fortunate I have been to experience more than 40 cultures of Indigenous Peoples in different parts of the world, often in very economically poor and remote settings. In places like these one learns a great deal about how to use research for understanding the vast knowledge Indigenous Peoples have for their cultures and ecosystems that can be used to benefit not only their own health, but to benefit all of us on this planet. This necessarily requires careful reflection and public health action on human nutrition enmeshed in social, cultural, environmental, economic, and human rights sciences and practice. As Founding Director of the Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment (CINE) at McGill I have worked with fascinating indigenous leaders and gifted colleagues, staff and students to contribute to the momentum for recognising and addressing the disparities in nutrition faced by Indigenous Peoples, particularly in their rural homelands.
I am a 'good news' person. I prefer to engage in research and public health work that calls attention to the good things in food systems, traditions and health, and to share this welcomed news in areas of food composition, cultural food practices, and dietary quality. Colleagues in our centre have successfully addressed the worrisome burdens of the nutrition transition, environmental threats, food insecurity, and the epidemiological statistics Indigenous Peoples' experience. But it is the balanced approach of considering both benefits and risks in food systems that goes the farthest to engage Indigenous Peoples in the partnerships needed to solve their pressing nutrition problems in today's complex world. It is also being able to genuinely say, 'You have a lot to teach us about good food, good health and the good life.'
Since 2001 I have worked with an astonishing set of colleagues with CINE, supported and sponsored by a wide variety of agencies and funders. This effort is an activity of a Task Force of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences. In particular, I have enjoyed several months as visiting scientist with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome and in the Bangkok region, during two sabbatical leaves. Community leader partners and academic partners in our current 12 case studies are completing the third book in our series that documents the vast biodiversity Indigenous Peoples know in their food systems and how they can devise and evaluate nutrition intervention activities to improve health in their communities. We have met several times in exchange and planning sessions in Italy at the Bellagio Center of the Rockefeller Foundation, and have produced several documentary videos. Check us out! www.indigenousnutrition.org and www.mcgill.ca/cine. And more due credit: the picture of me is by kpstudios in Anacortes.
Citizen of the United States of America, Canada and Switzerland. Currently resident in Anacortes, Washington, and Baie d'Urfe, Quebec. Wife, mother of 3 and grandmother of 4. Member of the American Society of Nutrition, the American Dietetics Association, and the Nutrition Society; Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research; and Canadian Institutes of Health Research review panels. Formerly Director of the School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition at McGill University (1985-1992) and founding Director of the Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment (CINE). Currently Emerita Professor of Human Nutrition. Fellow of the American Society of Nutrition, and Fellow of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences.
Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Western Ontario; Earl Crampton award for distinguished service in nutrition; Jack Hildes Medal for Circumpolar Health; recognition award from the Inuit Kanatami and the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. Expert witness and media consultant on nutrition of Indigenous Peoples; United Nations expert consultant on indicators of food security for Indigenous Peoples. Active within the United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition. Also work with United Nations UNEP and WHO expert consultation on indicators for health and well-being of communities directly dependent on ecosystems. United Nations FAO expert consultant on biodiversity indicators for nutrition. Association founding member.
harriet.kuhnlein@mcgill.ca
Soon after I began to study nutritional sciences in Vienna, Austria, in the early nineties, I experienced something that every nutritionist or dietician certainly has experienced. I was bombarded with questions related to eating and drinking from family members, friends, neighbours and others: 'Which diet should I follow to lose some weight?'; 'Why is too much salt bad for me?'; 'Should I prefer skimmed milk or avoid milk at all?'; 'What should I eat to be more competitive in sports?' and so on.
I certainly did not know the answers at that time and I am not sure if I, or we, the nutrition community, have the 'right' answers to such popular questions now. Even if we have an answer, we have a lot of trouble to communicate these answers to the public in a comprehensive manner for a number of reasons. It matters that the public is properly informed about nutrition, and it is vital that nutrition information is not contradictory and that it is congruent with research findings. Associations like ours are contributing to 'align' research findings and translating them for a wider audience. That is one of the reasons why I am in research now, for I would like to have an answer to questions related to food and nutrition. Why have I joined the Association? Because it is more effective to communicate 'right' answers not so much to individuals, but to the population at large.
Austrian citizen, living in France since the beginning of 2009. Currently post-doctoral research fellow at the International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France. Visiting lecturer at University of Vienna.
My research focuses on the development and improvement of dietary assessment methods better to measure diet and its association with chronic diseases including cancer. Most recent publications are dealing with mass media nutrition information sources and associations with fruit and vegetable consumption (published in Public Health Nutrition, 2009). A paper on nutrient patterns among 10 European countries has recently been submitted, and we are currently preparing a paper on weight status related underreporting using different dietary assessment methods. Association founding member.
freislingh@fellows.iarc.fr
Since childhood I have always been interested in and fascinated by food. So I went into food and nutrition. During my dietetic internship in a US hospital, I realised that the clinical field was not for me. So I enrolled in the MSc programme at McGill University, with a public health orientation, and then decided to go for the PhD. I became interested in nutrition in less resourced countries during my BSc, and joined a group of students preparing to work overseas. From then on, my goal was to work in international nutrition. The opportunity came soon after my PhD, with an appointment to be part of a public health training team at the medical school of Cameroon. I worked for CIDA as nutritionist in a public health training team at the medical school in Cameroon for three years. Then as a freelance consultant in international nutrition for several years, I had assignments mostly in Africa, and also in Central America and the Caribbean.
My current research focuses on the nutrition transition and the double burden of malnutrition, with institutional partners in French-speaking West Africa. This university partnership project also involves the development of new academic programmes in nutrition, action research in schools and communities, and advocacy for the prevention and control of diabetes.
Public health nutrition is geared towards the nutritional health of populations. I therefore believe that research should focus on this, instead of merely generating new knowledge. Public health nutrition is highly political, and not only technical. It therefore requires mobilisation. It is at a science crossroads and therefore, it also requires intersectoral and interdisciplinary action.
French and Canadian citizen. BSc in nutrition (Laval University, Canada), MSc in nutrition (McGill University, Canada) Ph.D. in clinical sciences (University of Montreal, Canada). I have additional training in private law, international management and agriculture economics. I joined the faculty at University of Montreal in 1985 with the mandate to develop the field of international nutrition in the nutrition department of the medical faculty. I became full professor in 1997. I have trained a dozen or so PhD students, mostly African, in international nutrition. I have been visiting professor at Senghor University in Alexandria (a university dedicated to French-speaking Africa) since 1991.
I am a member of the Canadian Nutrition Society, the Canadian Society of International Health, Dietitians Canada, and the International Union for Health Promotion and Education. I was a member of the board and head of the research committee, Canadian Society for International Health from 2000 to 2005, was scientific advisor to the International Foundation for Science, Sweden until 2010, and am a member of the international scientific committee of, Action against Hunger since 2008.
Helene.Delisle@umontreal.ca
I am a nutritionist with special interest in the bio-functionality of food and in public health. My career started in 1970 at the University of Giessen, Germany, where I was appointed full professor in 1980.
As the disciplines that engage me are applied natural sciences and are also embedded in the greater scientific area of the environment and ecosystem, my expertise is based both on mechanistic and global research activities.
For most of my life, I have moved between two worlds of great disparities with regards to both the health and nutrition situation, and these are still mirrored in our current global situation of public health and nutrition. With this background, my interest in public health nutrition and the problems of different regions of the world has been increasing.
Having established the study of nutritional sciences at the University of Vienna, Austria, I have been holding the position of director and professor at the Department of Nutritional Sciences since 1990. Since 1995, have repeatedly acted as a scientific advisor to the European Commission (Scientific Committee on Food) and the Austrian Ministry of Health, also in my function as member of the Austrian Codex Alimentarius Commission on food safety, diet quality, and consumer health protection.
I am author and co-author of several books on human nutrition, food science. Also on health monitoring such as the Austrian Nutrition Report that so far has been published in 1998, 2003, and 2008, and the European Nutrition and Health Report 2004 and 2009. Editor-in-Chief of the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism, and the book series Forum of Nutrition. President-Elect of the International Union of Nutritional Scuiences, as from the Bangkok congress, and President of the Austrian Nutrition Society. Association Vice-President.
ibrahim.elmadfa@univie.ac.at
I was born and grew up in Petrópolis, a small city near Rio de Janeiro. My family is deeply committed to social justice, and involved in many community projects. This has been decisive for the choices I've made. Very early in my life I was engaged with a civil society organisation that worked with the social inclusion of children and adolescents. This experience had a profound impact in my heart. At that moment, I was sure I would work with social issues. After that, when choosing my professional career, I decided to work in public health, and I chose nutrition, because I could see how it can lead to public action.
During my undergraduate course at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, I learned a lot in the regular classes, and also in the students' union, in which I was active. Thus, I learned about the rescue of the democratic process in my country, and about the role of the academy in developing countries.
In 1992, I began to work in the department of health of the municipality of Rio de Janeiro. I assessed programmes for children, adolescents and women developed in primary healthcare units, and projects linked to health promotion. I then realised that my vocation is to work in the interface between the academy and public policies.
After my PhD and appointment as a professor at the State University of Rio (UERJ) in 1999 I became director of the Institute of Nutrition Annes Dias, an institution linked to the city's health department that is responsible for all the food and nutrition public policies of the municipality. This covers, for instance, the school food programme serving almost 800,000 students. Here I learned about collective processes, conflict mediation, and democratic practices.
I created a sector in the institute that is responsible for studies in food, nutrition and health monitoring systems and in designing, implementing and evaluating nutrition interventions. Nowadays, as the coordinator of this sector, I'm responsible to identify, with many partners, the key questions for the nutrition of Rio, which can be addressed by academic studies, to raise funds, and to develop such studies.
After leaving as director of the Institute, while continuing to work there, I returned to UERJ, where I work as an associate professor in the department of social nutrition This involves working with undergraduate students in a small and very poor town near Rio de Janeiro . In their theses, all my graduate students work with themes linked to the public health nutrition agenda of the municipality or of the Ministry of Health.
In the last two years, my new challenge has been creating and coordinating the food and nutrition task force of Abrasco, the Brazilian Association of Collective Health. Its mission is to accomplish the mission of Abrasco in public health nutrition. The task force includes researchers known for their academic work, from 20 different institutions and from different regions of Brazil.
Brazilian citizen. MSc, PhD. From 1992, worked for the health department of the city of Rio. After my PhD, a member of the Núcleo de Pesquisas Epidemiológicas em Nutrição e Saúde, which assembles research from many institutions. As from 1996, professor in the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ).From the beginning of 1999 to the end of 2005, director of the Institute of Nutrition Annes Dias, Since 2008, co-ordinator of the food and nutrition task force of Abrasco. Co-opted as Association Council member to develop the 3rd World Congress in Rio de Janeiro in 2012.
inesrrc@uol.com.br
My interest in nutrition started in adolescence. At that time I had decided to become a vegetarian, based on my yoga learning and many readings on the issue. The environmental as well as the health implications of meat production and consumption really concerned me. In 2005 I had the chance to attend the World Social Forum, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where I worked as a volunteer guiding foreign delegations and also helping in translations from Portuguese to English. I was 16 years old at that time. There, I got in touch with different social movements that champion people's sovereignty.
In 2007 I entered the nutrition school at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, where I had passionate classes of public health nutrition led by my teacher, Inês Rugani. I could then start to understand the social and cultural importance of food consumption, rather than only the biological nutrient-based view. Still in university, around 2009, I started reading Michael Pollan's books, and also those of Tim Lang, which were very inspiring. Geoffrey Cannon's writings, which I got to know in 2010, also guide my way of thinking about nutrition. During my time at university I had the opportunity as an intern in family health programmes, working with low income families, and also helping with nutritional advice to impoverished families, where I learned more about the importance of the social and environmental determinants of health. I now want to focus on policy and actions to implement our beliefs.
Brazilian citizen. At the beginning of 2011 I graduated as a nutritionist, and I am now at Fiocruz, in the Brazilian National School of Public Health, taking my master's degree in public health and environment. I then intend to research the social and environmental determinants of food consumption patterns, the consequences of food production patterns, and also to analyze policy implications of food security in the city of Rio de Janeiro.
isabelasattamini@gmail.com
I helped to establish the National Food Alliance in the UK in the mid-1980s. The NFA eventually became, in 1999, Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming. From the beginning it was clear that the public health approach to nutrition not only made more sense, but also worked better than the individualistic and reductionist approach. Public health nutrition is also a much better fit with the approaches we need to take to create and maintain sustainable food and farming systems in an era of climate change.
My first degree was in international relations, and my master's in development studies. I have spent my working life in campaigning organisations. My first job was as a policy analyst at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. After five years I moved on to campaigning at the Coronary Prevention Group. Four years on I became co-ordinator of the National Food Alliance, alongside undertaking consultancy work for other health-related organisations. I continued as Co-ordinator when the NFA merged with SAFE (the Sustainable Agriculture Food and Environment Alliance) to become Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming. At Sustain now, I co-ordinate a team of campaigners and project officers.
British citizen. I do not work in an academic setting. As Sustain's Co-ordinator, I liaise with the UK Food Standards Agency, contribute to a range of food policy committees, and appear in the media representing a public interest view on food policy issues. I was awarded an MBE for services to food policy in the 2007 UK New Year Honours.
jeanette@sustainweb.org
My father's job was to maintain fruit orchards and to harvest and sell the fruits. So as a child I lived between fruits and vegetables. My wish was to learn more about these crops, and in 1968, at the age of 17, I decided to study horticulture at Wageningen University, the only agricultural university in the Netherlands. However, in 1969 the master degree programme on human nutrition was created, linking food with nutrition and health. It became clear to me that this combination was what I was actually looking for. So I entered the first batch of starting nutritionists of Wageningen University, initially taught by Cees den Hartog and then by his successor Jo Hautvast.
My interest in public health nutrition got an important push in the mid 1990s. At that time I got involved in an EU European project working on an European masters degree for public health nutrition. This project was coordinated by Agneta Ingve and Michael Sjöström. In fact, we developed an informal European network on PHN. As an outcome of that stimulating cooperation project, a specialization in public health nutrition was created at Wageningen University within the regular master's programme on nutrition and health.
After finishing my MSc and PhD degrees in nutrition, I became assistant professor and then associate professor at the Division of Human Nutrition of Wageningen University. In this period I became familiar with strictly controlled human and animal experiments and with longitudinal observational as well as intervention and supplementation studies, studying various target groups in various settings. These groups included pregnant and lactating women, infants, young children and adult. The settings included the Netherlands, the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, and South Africa. I have teached in BSc, MSc and PhD courses and supervised and supported about 150 MSc students and about 15 PhD fellows with their research projects. I have always had a warm interest in teaching students and I chaired with great pleasure for 15 years the MSc Nutrition and Health programme committee.
After working for more than 25 years in nutrition research, I felt that we are still not working hard enough to get the scientific findings of our work incorporated into national and international nutrition policies. Therefore I decided to help bridging the gap between science and policy. In 2005 I moved to the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), while keeping a position at Wageningen University. RIVM is a knowledge and research institute, supportive to the Dutch government, but also to European Commission bodies and to WHO, and to other national governments.
Dutch citizen. I was born in 1951 in a small town, Culemborg, situated in the middle of the Netherlands. I am married and we have four children. Within RIVM I am heading activities related to public health nutrition. Heading the WHO Collaborating Centre for Nutrition at RIVM. I am involved in writing advisory and scientific reports at the request of the Dutch government, European Commission bodies, and WHO Europe on issues related to nutrition and health. I have written as first or co-author about 70 scientific publications. Am co-editor-in-chief of the RIVM report Our Food, Our Health: Healthy Diet and Safe Food in the Netherlands (2006). I am an associate editor of Public Health Nutrition. Association founding member.
joop.van.raaij@rivm.nl
My goal in entering the University of Ghana in 1997 was to come out as a medical doctor. All that changed after taking an introductory nutrition course. After the first semester I said to myself 'this is what I should be involved in'. I was convinced that with proper nutrition most of our health problems would be prevented. I went on to take another semester of nutrition to convince myself that I do understand what nutrition is about. This is what I truly want to do for the rest of my life. I have not looked back after those two introductory semesters. I am even more convinced that nutrition holds the key to unlocking humankind's numerous health and well-being problems. The course exposed me to the realities of poor nutrition and its consequences and the populations at risk. The importance of public health nutrition dawned on me even though I did not fully understand it then.
Ghanaian citizen. I am currently a PhD (nutrition) student, with minors in education and epidemiology from Cornell University, New York, USA. I hold a BSc in food science and nutrition and a Master's degree in nutrition from the University of Ghana, Legon-Accra. My Master's thesis was on iron and zinc status in pregnant women in malarial areas and impact on birth outcomes. I have spent considerable time working in the areas of maternal and child nutrition and health education. I was a member of the Ghanian working group that conducted a landscape analysis of Ghana's readiness to accelerate reduction of maternal and child undernutrition. I was also a member of the management team of the Ghana Maternal Vitamin A Supplementation Trial I have worked in India, Malaysia and Switzerland. I have many publications in the area.
joashong@gmail.com
I have had a long journey towards public health nutrition. Always I had been thinking 'how can the research I do, contribute to improving my neighbours' lives?' After fifteen years working on digestive function in laboratory animals, finally I had an opportunity to test the effects of diet composition on several body systems. In turn this led me to research on nutrition and its consequences on public health. Then I sensed I was moving towards the place I wanted to be.
At that time I was fortunate to find colleagues who have become good friends, like Lluis Serra-Majem and Javier Aranceta, who introduced me to public health nutrition. In the 1990s this in turn led me to direct a group responsible for the first nutritional survey of the Balearic Islands, and afterwards towards finding nutritional solutions to oxidative stress. Then we founded the Research Group on Community Nutrition and Oxidative Stress in our University of the Balearic Islands.
As another experience, several years after this I directed the nutritional survey of Jujuy province in the Andean area of Argentina, and so have direct experience of social and nutritional necessities in impoverished as well as privileged societies and communities in different parts of the world.
I am committed to defend and to promote the Mediterranean Diet. I was born in Mallorca and have family ties with Ibiza, both part of the Balearic archipelago in the Western Mediterranean area. So my commitment has deep roots.
To work in public health nutrition is not just to work within a biomedical science. It is to protect and improve our neighbours' lives. So now I am where I always wanted to be.
Spanish citizen, born in Palma de Mallorca in 1957. Pharmacist (MSc, and also PhD). Professor of Physiology at the University of the Balearic Islands. Director of the Research Group in Community Nutrition and Oxidative Stress at the University of the Balearic Islands. Have authored more than 180 publications and around 100 indexed scientific papers. A total of 10 books written and edited, and around 50 chapters and editorials, prologues and presentations.
Visiting professor at several universities in Europe and South America. Associate Editor of the Spanish Journal of Community Nutrition. Founding member of the Spanish Academy of Nutrition and Food Science, the Spanish Society of Community Nutrition, and the Spanish Society of Laboratory Animal Sciences. Member, the Royal Academy of Pharmacy of Catalonia, the board of the Spanish Society of Community Nutrition, and the board of the NGO Nutrition without Borders. President, the sixth congress of the Spanish Society of Community Nutrition and fourth Iberoamerican meeting of public health nutrition, held in Ibiza in 2004. Association founding member.
pep.tur@uib.es
I was born in the early fifties to a peasant family in the western part of Uganda. In those days, educating girls was not popular in Uganda, and indeed in most of Africa, but my father was visionary and put me to school. Throughout my secondary education, my dream was to become a medical doctor. However, I realised I was not comfortable handling biological fluids, and I applied for agriculture instead. I graduated with a first class honours degree in agriculture at Makerere University, the first woman to do so in Uganda. As a result, I got a scholarship for postgraduate studies in Canada and obtained an MSc in food science and nutrition. I also got married while in Canada.
We lived in Cameroon in the 1980s, and while there I realised that in Cameroon levels of childhood malnutrition were low compared with Uganda. As the West African diet is quite different from that of East Africa, I wondered whether this was the cause of the health differences. On return home, I participated in the establishment of the department of food science and technology at Makerere University, the first such unit in the country. Soon after, I went to the UK and did a PhD in human nutrition, focusing on childhood malnutrition and its causes, particularly diet. Being a sandwich programme, I was able to do the research in Uganda. I found that indeed inappropriate diet was a significant culprit, plus poor hygiene, and infections, particularly malaria. Recently, I have extended my research to school age, a period that is largely neglected world-wide.
After realising that mothers in rural areas lack the knowledge and skills for optimum child feeding and care, I have devoted a big section of my time educating them on best practices. In the early 2000s, I spearheaded the development of an MSc in applied human nutrition in our department. and this programme is producing the much needed human resource in nutrition for Uganda and the region. I get a lot of satisfaction seeing the general public and policy makers gradually appreciating the importance of nutrition to national health and development.
I am a Ugandan lady working at Makerere University, Kampala, as an associate professor of food science and nutrition. I have worked at this university for the last 20 years, half of which as head of the department. I am also the current chairperson of Uganda Action for Nutrition (UGAN) which recently hosted the first ever nutrition congress in Uganda. I am a peer reviewer for the African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development and an external examiner for Kenyatta University, Kenya. I am the author of Uganda Nutrition Profiles, a book currently being published by FAO. Recently, I was selected as a member of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Board of Trustees. Association founding member.
joycek@agric.mak.ac.ug
I was born in the Philippine Islands, raised and educated in the United States, and have lived in Barcelona since 1993. This may explain in part my fascination with exploring different cultures, traditions and especially their music and cuisines.
Upon completing my Bachelors in Dietetics and Human Nutrition, I pursued further studies in public health, focussing on international nutrition. After more than a decade of working in public health nutrition with immigrants and culturally diverse underserved maternal-child populations in Boston, I made the transatlantic jump to teach community nutrition in the dietetics program and conduct research in Barcelona. Another decade of working with the Mediterranean Diet Foundation enriched my knowledge base and appreciation of traditional foodways and determinants of their change and promotion.
Upon completing my Bachelors in Dietetics and Human Nutrition, I pursued further studies in public health, focussing on international nutrition. After more than a decade of working in public health nutrition with immigrants and culturally diverse underserved maternal-child populations in Boston, I made the transatlantic jump to teach community nutrition in the dietetics program and conduct research in Barcelona. Another decade of working with the Mediterranean Diet Foundation enriched my knowledge base and appreciation of traditional foodways and determinants of their change and promotion.
With the relatively recent phenomenon of immigration to Spain, I find myself making the full circle and returning to work once again in the areas of nutrition and cultural diversity addressing newly arrived ethnic populations. Being an immigrant myself twice over has made me especially sensitive to the needs and challenges that these populations face. I am particularly committed to working with underserved at-risk groups, both locally and in loew-income countries.
United States citizen, resident of Spain, born in Manila, Philippines. Registered dietitian (RD, MPH). Numerous publications in scientific journals and books as well as training and educational materials on nutrition and cultural diversity. Researcher with the Public Health Nutrition Research Center at the University of Barcelona. Secretary General for the Board of the NGO Nutrition Without Borders. Member, American Dietetics Association, Spanish Association of Dietitians-Nutritionists, Spanish Society of Community Nutrition, Performer and Instructor of flamenco dance. Association founding member.
nutricom@pcb.ub.cat
Nutrition has been my passion for over thirty years. It all started at the end of high school, back in 1973, when it became clear that I wanted to devote my career to contribute to social equity, in a country characterised by deep social disparities.
But I also liked biology and medical sciences a great deal. I decided to study in the first undergraduate programme in nutrition in Mexico. After finishing a PhD programme in nutrition at Cornell University, I spent six years in Guatemala at the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama. Back in Mexico I was the founding director of the Center for Research in Nutrition and Health at the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico (INSP), a position that I hold today. I am also a professor of nutrition in the School of Public Health in Mexico.
At INSP our group developed a framework for research planning which has evolved with time and we use today. We call it Mission Oriented Research, which places its efforts on improving the nutrition and health conditions of the population through the application of the scientific method. On the basis of this framework, we have developed a model with phases that are necessary to achieve the final objective of developing nutrition and health policies. We have used this model to plan our research agenda and have been able to influence the design, on the basis of evidence, of nutrition programmes and policy in México.
Mexican citizen. First degree in nutrition at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. MS and PhD in International Nutrition, Cornell University. A former director of Nutrition and Health at the Nutrition Institute of Central America and Panama (INCAP). Since 1993 I have been with the National Public Health Institute in Mexico. Nutrition advisor to the Mexican Ministries of Health and of Social Development, and member of the National Research System (SNI) since 1993 and of the National Academy of Medicine since 2003.
I have been Chair of the International Nutrition Council of the American Society for Nutrition, and am co-chair of the International Zinc Nutrition Consultative Group (IZiNCG). I was a member of the expert panel responsible for the 2007 and 2999 World Cancer Research Fund/ American Institute for Cancer Research, reports of food, nutrition and the prevention of cancer worldwide. Member of the National Academy of Medicine and the Academy of Sciences in Mexico. Member of the board of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS) from 2001 to 2005.
Founding director of the Center for Research in Nutrition and Health at the National Institute of Public Health; also professor of nutrition at the School of Public Health in Mexico. Adjunct professor at Cornell University and at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, Atlanta. Member of the Latin American Nutrition Society, the American Society for Nutritional Sciences, and the American Society for Nutrition. Have published more than 200 scientific articles, book chapters and books. Association Council member.
jrivera@insp.mx
I was born and brought up in Niue, a small Pacific island linked with New Zealand. I left Niue to complete my high school education. High school in Niue only went up to the 5th form then. So I spent two years in high school in New Zealand before going to Otago University in 1982.
As a Pacific Islander, I love food, from growing your own to preparation, to eating! When I was growing up, I wanted to be a physician like my dad, but was not really fully committed to it. While studying at university, my mum was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 43. This was 1985. Diabetes was very rare in Niue at that time. So my dad asked me if I would be interested in studying human nutrition, which I did. Since it was do with food I decided to take it up, and I have never looked back since then. My mum is 75 years old now and she only started taking insulin injections 5 years ago.
When my dad asked me about taking up nutrition, I started planning on becoming a clinical dietitian. It was not until I was completing my postgraduate diploma in dietetics that I really became interested in public health nutrition, and chose it for my dissertation paper. After completing my dietetic training, I worked briefly as a clinical dietitian seeing a few diabetic patients a day. It was very brief as I needed to take time off to have my sixth child.
While on maternity leave, I thought seriously about my profession and where I would make the most difference. I was one of a very few Pacific Island registered dietitians in New Zealand at that time, and diseases like diabetes and obesity were all becoming too common among Pacific people. When I was ready to rejoin the workforce again eight months later, I contacted my public health supervisor and she promptly offered me a job in public health. Thus began my career in public health.
I learned a lot from my dad. He was a firm believer in 'prevention is better than cure'. To me public health nutrition is all about prevention – preventing ill health by eating healthily and being physically active.
New Zealand citizen. Born and raised in Niue, a self governed small island country in close association with New Zealand. Completed my Bachelor of Science degree, major in microbiology in 1985, and Bachelor in consumer and applied science, major in human nutrition in 1989. Registered New Zealand dietitian with a postgraduate diploma in dietetics, passed with distinctions in 2001. I completed my postgraduate diploma in public health from the University of Otago in 2005.
Currently working as the nutrition adviser for the secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), providing leadership and support in the area of nutrition to all 22 Pacific Island member countries. Before, manager of health promotion for the Wellington division of the Cancer Society, focusing on cancer prevention and promotion of healthy ways of life. Before that, coordinator for the nutrition and physical activity team for the Wellington area, working across three district health boards in the area of nutrition and physical activity.
Pacific representative on the steering committee for the national nutrition and also the national children survey. Member of the steering committee for the New Zealand Pacific diabetes project. I wrote the Nutrition Handbook for Health Professionals as part of this project. Board member for the New Zealand agencies for nutrition action, and also the obesity coalition.
karenf@spc.int
I grew up in a small country town in Western Victoria, Australia. Despite being an active child whose mother tried to provide with healthy meals, I was obese, continually struggling with my weight and the associated social stigma from my peers. Time and time again I attempted to change my eating habits so I could be 'normal', but found my love of food and cooking, my family and broader environment, made this a near impossible task. At high school I lost a large amount of weight only to regain this, and more, by the time I'd completed my BSc in genetics and biochemistry. Throughout my life I have been angered by how those unable to distinguish healthy from unhealthy, such as children and the uneducated, are unfairly targeted by advertising. I knew that my way of life was not only a product of this environment, but also of my family's method of expressing emotions through food, and lack of understanding of the physical consequences of poor diets and inactivity.
Following my BSc I started paying for my lifetime of being obese. It wasn't until I started re-inventing myself out of a hapless relationship, and rekindled my passion for cooking, that things started to look up. This time I made nutrition the number one priority. Being the logical person I am, I couldn't fathom providing my body with fuel that was unhealthy!
So, as a 22 year old, I began walking long distances, delved deep into nutrition research, and allowed my cooking skills to flourish. In doing so, I reduced my weight down to just over half of my largest size and obliterated the symptoms I'd started experiencing due to my obesity. Through my determination to change my personal situation I became committed to ensuring that every child, every human being, is no longer manipulated by industry, has access to safe and nutritious diets, and has the education and skills to realise this. I enjoyed helping others to achieve their personal goals.
When people kept asking me what my secret was, I realised that nutrition education and promotion had become my a passion, and that I had to do something formally about taking it further. Thus, I enrolled for a Masters degree in human nutrition to further fuel my passion and set myself up to help others on a larger scale. While studying, I also worked on nutritional epidemiology at the Cancer Council of Victoria, and have since been employed on a type 2 diabetes prevention programme at Diabetes Australia.
Now I have my Master's degree. My current employment allows me to fulfil my desire to help others on a larger scale to adopt healthier habits, and one day I hope to be involved in policy-making to make an ever larger impact. In 2009 I attended the ICN Congress in Bangkok. It was a wonderful occasion, but it saddened me to see that a culture with an abundance of nutritious fruits and vegetables and a great traditional cuisine, now seems to be embracing the fast food habits of the West.
Equity and logic are two key aspects of my personality. The world as we know it is far from aligned with equity and logic, particularly when it comes to food, nutrition and health. Regardless of background or socio-economic status, no one should endure what I went through as a child. This is what keeps me driven to make this world a better place. Like most nutritionists, I realise that the political system is primarily run by those interested in profit and power. I am determined to make the voice of public health nutritionists heard in the political arena to change policy, to produce and implement action plans with nutrition at their heart, and to make this world more nutritionally equitable.
Australian citizen. Currently project officer of the Life! Taking Action on Diabetes program at Diabetes Australia, in Victoria. Outside of my employment I involve myself in conferences, public consultations, seminars, workshops and other opportunities I see to be the voice of public health nutrition.
KMDelley@gmail.com
The Indus downstream, with what is reportedly the world's biggest canal system, boost agriculture in parts of Pakistan, in the area where I spent my childhood. It's a fertile land. The 1970s green revolution saw a sharp rise in crop production. Increased production and a rise in small industries from the 1980s, brought a big change and hope to the lives of millions. Apparently, the country was doing well on different fronts even under the iron rule of a dictator in the 1960s and 80s. But repeated military coups and inefficient and corrupt democratic rulers ushered the country into abyssal poverty. The total number of people below the poverty line rose from 19 million in 1960 to a staggering 42 million in 1995. Today the figure stands higher, at over 57 million.
Then came 9/11 (the attack on the twin towers in New York). It changed the course of history and fate of this country. Today food insecurity is a big problem, despite all our claims of being self-sufficient in basic food commodities. This is not the same situation I witnessed as a child some 20 years ago. I remember how a very big kutway (a mud pot for cooking food), cooked in our home, would cater for 20-30 workers, hired for various tasks. For snacks they would be provided with paratas (flat bread) prepared in butter with desi ghee (fats extracted from butter) and gur (non-centrifugal sugar obtained through traditional methods). For lunches they would be given meat and vegetables. As a child, I enjoyed those days eating a lot of butter and gur. Those days are gone. From childhood to my adulthood, I have seen people growing poorer and poorer. Poverty has its price. A life loses its meaning when everything revolves around pennies
Human nutrition attracted me when I first heard of it in our introductory course in the first year of our BSc (Hons) course. I liked what our teacher taught in class. I specialised in human nutrition. During my undergraduate course, I worked in a nutritional rehabilitation centre as a trainee, at Khyber teaching hospital in Peshawar. The nature and extent of malnourished cases we received almost each day was incredible. From that time, I realised that the only sustainable solution to the issue of malnutrition is emphasis on public health nutrition. I completed my MSc (Hons) in human nutrition with a distinction from the Agricultural University in Peshawar in 2004. The same year I got an offer of department to study social development and health in UK, and from the Flemish Inter-University Council to study food science and nutrition in Ghent, Belgium. I opted for Ghent, successfully completed my studies in 2005, and returned to my country.
Pakistani citizen. After my summer training at Khyber Teaching Hospital as a trainee nutritionist, I have not looked back. During my studies, I joined Blue Veins, a local nongovernmental organisation, working on breast cancer awareness. I helped them in developing nutritional advice. Meanwhile, I got an opportunity with Action Against Hunger to survey the nutritional status of Afghan refugees living in camps in the North Western borders of Pakistan. Working with under-5 refugee children was a big experience of my life. It strengthened my dedication to public health nutrition. I have experience of working with the World Food Programme as country programme intern, with Action Against Hunger as a surveyor, WHO as a nutritionist and the Micronutrient Initiative as provincial coordinator. My job descriptions have included data collection, data analysis, support in project planning, project implementation, project monitoring and reporting. With other colleagues, I have worked to develop material for salt iodisation, wheat flour fortification and vitamin A supplementation. I am a member of the American Society of Nutrition.
kalidiqbal@yahoo.com
