MEMBERS' PROFILES



Continued from the home page… The Association members profiled below this month, in order of their first names, include two from the greater Mediterranean region, and three from the Americas. As you can see, two are men and three are women. Their postgraduate experience ranges from a few years to over 30 years. What perhaps is more important is shared commitment and their range of interests and knowledge, as you can gather from their profiles.

What are we missing? The Association wants and needs more members from all regions of Asia including ‘the Near East’, from Africa north and south of the Sahara, and from Central America. We also need more members who are not formally public health nutritionists, from the UN system, national governments, civil society organisations, and from professions sympathetic with nutrition and food policy and practice and with public health.

Above all we are looking for members who want to play an active part towards achieving our aims and objectives. Can and will you devote up to five hours a week to your Association, networking in your region or country, helping to build up our professional certification scheme, as a member of the World Nutrition editorial team, or using other skills? Or, would you like to be part of the governance of the Association as a Council member? If so, great! Please contact.

Mark Lawrence
Association Secretary-General

 Agneta Yngve



I grew up in a very small town in central Sweden. Back then, only children from poor families were provided with a free school lunch. The rest of us went home to our devoted mothers who had cooked for us. The differences between social groups were therefore made very visible for us children, already from the first grade.

My first serious encounter with nutrition was when I as a 17-year old saw a well known environmentalist wash his shirt in coffee whitener on TV! I remember getting really upset, suddenly understanding that the coffee whitener was made from synthetic ingredients and had never been close to a cow, and my choice of studying nutrition was given.

I do believe that my early encounter with socioeconomic differences between children, even in a welfare state like Sweden, later followed by the sudden revelation that some ‘foods’ were practically only confections of food additives, has shaped my feeling of a need for more attention to equity issues and also the importance of ‘food dignity’, meaning food being produced and served with heart as well as brain.

After a long period as a freelance nutritionist, where I published my first book (on food and cancer) in 1986, helped food companies with labelling, worked as a teacher in school and college and had my own magazine column, I was recruited to the Karolinska Institutet in 1987. My task was to build the unit for public health nutrition where I still am located. Having taken an MSc in nutrition, I studied public health and got my MPH at the Karolinska Institutet and started to build a training programme in public health nutrition, which is now transformed to a programme for students studying for their Master’s degree. .

It has become very obvious to me that the political system is mostly run by economists and lawyers, with a completely different mindset than nutritionists. In order to make ourselves heard and thereby make a difference in low-income as well as high-income countries, we need to make sure that the next generation of public health nutritionists has a commitment and a drive to change political systems and to produce and implement nutrition action plans. They also need to evaluate and adjust the actions accordingly, in order to change things around and make this world more equal in regards to food, nutrition and health.

My students come from all over the world to the Karolinska Institutet. This is in part due to the fact that University studies are for free in my country, a blessing that will unfortunately soon disappear. The students come with different backgrounds, and it is fascinating to see that the knowledge they bring, builds synergies in the training programme. This makes teaching future public health nutritionists a really rewarding and honourable task. This is what inspires me in my daily work as a public health nutritionist, teacher and researcher.

Swedish citizen, now also working partly in Norway.. Currently Associate Professor and Unit Head at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden and recently appointed Professor at Akershus University College, Lilleström, Norway. My current research is dealing with childhood nutritional health, using several approaches. I am, with my four PhD students, working with fruit and vegetable intake assessment in childhood, also mapping breastfeeding prevalence and infant feeding, investigating components of breastmilk of importance for infant health and doing surveys on childhood growth in collaboration with WHO Europe.

I am also, through one of my PhD students, involved in mapping Europe in regards to the labour market for Public Health Nutritionists and identifying issues of importance for training programmes. Another one of my interests is workplace health promotion, and I am currently in charge of a major walking intervention at Karolinska Institutet, involving more than 1,300 staff, where another one of my PhD students is assessing effects of the intervention over a six month period. Editor-in-chief, the journal Public Health Nutrition since 2007. Association Council member.

Agneta.yngve@ki.se

Antonia Trichopoulou



I have been devoted to public health, and in particular public health nutrition, throughout my professional life. I started being aware of public health as early as in the fourth year of my medical studies at the University of Athens. I was fortunate to be chosen by a distinguished and highly respected ‘old style’ professor of hygiene and epidemiology, to help him in the various teaching and research activities he was carrying out. One day, I dared to make some comments on the plan of work. He told to me in his deep voice: ‘For the next ten years you will listen, you will not speak’.

For bad or good, the next ten years I was listening and learning, either in the clinics or in the laboratories where I was doing my internship and later as a student in the Athens, and then the Ann Arbor, schools of public health. In the late 1960s, I decided to speak my mind on a health issue. I did not realise that this was my first step to public health nutrition. What I was asking, without getting a satisfactory answer, was: ‘Why do we recommend seed oils for better health, rather than olive oil?’ Later I realised that public health is a way of thinking that differs from clinical medicine, and I decided not to practice medicine but to be devoted to public health.

Working on lipid metabolism I was further involved with nutrition. In 1979 I became professor of nutrition and biochemistry in the National School of Public Heath in Athens. What a challenging task! No food composition tables, no surveys, no methodologies, no laboratories – and being constantly asked what the Greeks are eating, and what they should eat. Perseverance and hard work was needed for many years, under the constraint of very limited resources. But there were also rewards. I was able to see the traditional Mediterranean diet that I have been advocating since the early 1980s, become widely recognised as a health-promoting diet.

In 1980, Greece became Member of the European Union. This was a new start. I had the opportunity to meet distinguished colleagues and to collaborate and interact with them in various projects. I was given the opportunity to participate in many WHO and EU committees and thus to understand that public health nutrition is more than publishing good papers, in order to provide evidence-based arguments. It also requires one to be outspoken, even at the risk of being occasionally unpleasant.

Greek citizen. MD, PhD. Professor and director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Nutrition at the Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, School of Medicine, University of Athens. She has served as president of the Federation of the European Nutrition Societies (FENS), and as chairperson or key member of numerous Greek, European Commission and World Health Organization Committees. She has received numerous honours and awards and was decorated by the president of the Greek Republic with the Golden Cross of Honour for her work in nutrition and public health.

In the 1980s she led the work that renewed interest in the Mediterranean Diet as a health promoting diet. Later she developed a score that allows measurement of adherence to this diet, which also facilitates study of its health effects. In the early 2000s she took the lead in creating the Hellenic Health Foundation, a very active non-profit organisation which is dedicated to serving public health and high-quality related research.

antonia@nut.uoa.gr

 Barrie Margetts



I grew up in Australia. My first job, in 1975, was working as a physical anthropologist on an archeological excavation in South Australia. I was struck by the contrast of what seemed like the ideal life led by aboriginals for many thousands of years in harmony with their environment and seemingly healthy. This contrasted with aboriginals then living in Adelaide who were in very poor health and with clear signs of social breakdown.

It seemed to me at the time that poor nutrition must be an issue. I knew nothing about this so paid for myself to go to the UK to learn some more. In England I met colleagues from around the world and afterwards visited Kerala, India, and stayed at the Centre for Development Studies. I realised that equity, social justice and women’s empowerment could really make a difference to the effective use of scarce resources.

These early experiences shaped the way I think about how nutrition, as a biological science, also fits within a wider social and ecological context. Studying epidemiology and public health then made me realise that to make things better, or to keep them well, we need to address the underlying causes and not just treat the symptoms: in other words we must use a preventive population approach. Travelling the world has reinforced my conviction that we need to improve the system and structure within which nutrition operates to make it more effective in all countries. This is what motivates me to do public health nutrition.

Australian/ British citizen, based in the UK since 1985. Currently Professor in Public Health Nutrition, University of Southampton and visiting Professor at North West University, South Africa and at University of The Sunshine Coast in Queensland. I was recently awarded an honorary doctorate from the North West University. My scholarship focuses now on interventions aimed at improving nutrition related health in Africa, India and the UK, including workforce development. Founding editor-in-chief of Public Health Nutrition and continue as deputy editor. Most recent books Public Health Nutrition (edited with Mike Gibney, John Kearney, Lenore Arab) Blackwell Science, Oxford 2004. I am currently preparing a book with Roger Hughes for practitioners. Association President.

B.M.Margetts@soton.ac.uk

 Barry Popkin



My entry into nutrition was when I worked for a year in a squatter area in old Delhi, India, in the mid-1960s. I became interested in health and welfare and learned Hindi during this time. When I returned to the University of Wisconsin I decided to focus on the economics of nutrition for my thesis. I then worked at the US government’s new poverty agency, the Office of Economic Opportunity, and helped to write the Citizens Crusade Against Hunger report.

I then became a political activist organising welfare mothers and unions, and was involved in civil rights and the anti-war struggle. My Marxist and Maoist perspective was of the need to organise communities at the grassroots to achieve true social change. I then returned to academic work and obtained my PhD from Cornell University. My interests were – and remain – nutrition, the poor, and the interaction of socio-economic and individual factors.

I began my academic career with a position in Asia with the Rockefeller Foundation. After spending three years in Southeast Asia I returned to the US and took a job at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This institution has allowed me to build my research and training programme over time and I have remained happily ensconced there for over 30 years.

My economics and activist backgrounds have given me a special perspective on nutrition. Concerns such as how low income families live and earn their living led me to focus on women’s work as it affects infant and child nutrition, and to other early work on poverty in the US and around the world. Because of having intense experiences in Asia and the US, I have always felt comfortable studying both worlds.

Midway through my career I began to feel that that to focus on small intense studies was to miss the major global socio-economic and demographic transitions. This prompted me to develop the China Health and Nutrition Survey, which has continued over almost a 20-year period now. At this time I also spent an intense period of study and writing, thinking about the major global and historical transitions in food, nutrition, physical activity and body composition. I then began to develop my theory of the nutrition transition.

The rest is history! My China work has expanded to many countries, including Russia, and with Carlos Monteiro in Brazil and more recently Mexico with Juan Rivera and others. My main interest is the global nutrition transition – in particular, the rapid shift to a stage of nutrition-related degenerative diseases with all the dynamic shifts in diet, activity, and obesity. My global research includes longitudinal studies I direct in China, Russia, and the Philippines, and related work in Brazil and other countries.

US citizen. Distinguished Professor Global Nutrition, Division of Nutrition Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). Director, UNC-CH Interdisciplinary Obesity Center, linking scholars focused on cell to society to addressing obesity globally. Faculty member, UNC-CH Nutrition Department, School of Public Health, and also of the Economics Department. Convenor, International Union of Nutritional Sciences task force on the nutrition transition Recent book is the The World is Fat: The Fads, Trends, Policies, and Products that are Fattening the Human Race (Penguin, 2009). Association founding member.

popkin@unc.edu

 Carlo la Vecchia



My special interest is the causation and prevention of cancer; in particular the impact of different types of diet on cancer risk. Living as I do in the Mediterranean region, I am aware that traditional Mediterranean diets evidently protect against some cancers, as well as cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases. This is because such diets are rich in pulses, fresh fruits and vegetables – and hence in selected micronutrients. It is the complex composition of Mediterranean diets, rather than any single food or nutrient, that is evidently most relevant. Olive oil is the key common characteristic of diets throughout the Mediterranean region. Olive oil also evidently protects against the risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as of several cancers, particularly of the digestive tract. Polyunsaturated fats in fish have been associated with reduced risk of selected cancers and cardiovascular disease.

I also investigate the relevance of different types of carbohydrates, in relation to their fibre composition and glycaemic index and load, in the process of carcinogenesis.

To increase our understanding of the mechanisms bearing on disease causation, I have conducted extensive epidemiological research. This includes systematic analyses of cancer trends in Europe and also worldwide, in order to identify and explain major differences in cancer rates. They also include examination of the separate and combined effects of alcohol and of tobacco on carcinogenesis. Besides epidemiologic research, public health education and prevention are key aspects of all my activities.

Italian citizen. Head of the Laboratory of Epidemiology at the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, Italy. Also Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Milan, Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and Adjunct Professor of Medicine, School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. Author or co-author of over 1,600 publications in peer reviewed journals (1470 included in Medline). Association Council member.

lavecchia@marionegri.it
Carlos Monteiro



I have two abiding commitments. One is to the independence and social responsibility of scientists. The other is to the health and welfare of the people – beginning with my own country, and also internationally. These are not only intellectual ideas. I learned them in the 1970s, at the time of Brazil’s period of military dictatorship, when I worked as a young paediatrician in poor rural villages and urban slums in the state of São Paulo, and also in Porto Nacional, a small city in the backlands of what is now the Northern state of Tocantins.

Also I learned that sustained protection and improvement of public health depends on a good understanding of the history, culture, resources and political regime of any country. These also depend on identifying the basic causes of disease and health, which vary with time and place. Brazil, a very big country, with many types of deep-seated inequity, and ruled in the last five decades successively by the military, social democrats and populists, taught me a lot about such aspects.

One more thing I have learned is not to take received ways of thinking for granted. As one example, with colleagues at the School of Public Health at the University of São Paulo, I am currently investigating the possibility that the most significant factor linking food with health and the risk of disease is not so much the food itself, or the nutrients in food, as much as processing – what is done to food before we buy and consume it.

My ongoing lines of research include population nutritional and food intake assessment; secular trends and biological and socioeconomic determinants of both nutritional deficiencies and of obesity and other nutrition-related diseases; and the evaluation of food and nutrition programmes.

International work includes studies on the studies on the linked nutrition and epidemiological transitions in low- and middle-income developing countries, in association with Barry Popkin and other colleagues.

Brazilian citizen. MD and PhD, both at the University of São Paulo (USP). Two-year postdoctoral training at the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University, New York. Since entry in 1975 as an assistant professor, my entire academic career has been centred at the Department of Nutrition of the School of Public Health at USP. Tenured professorship acquired in 1990. Worked for the Nutrition Unit at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva 1990-1992, and was visiting Professor at the universities of Bonn and Geneva.

Scientific coordinator of the USP Centre for Epidemiological Studies in Health and Nutrition. Editor of Revista de Saúde Pública; an Associate Editor of Public Health Nutrition; and a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Obesity. Currently a member of the WHO Nutrition Expert Advisory Group (NUGAG). Also a member of the task force of the Pan American Health Organization for the elimination of trans fats in the Americas. Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences since 2008. Association founding member.

carlosam@usp.br

César Victora



Since I started medical school in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1971, I was always concerned about population health. My residency in community health in one of the city’s slums convinced me that treating sick people – who came back repeatedly to our health centre with the same recurring problems – was not the most efficient way of improving their health, and led me into prevention and epidemiology. Among all sick people with whom I had contact, I was most touched by young children suffering from undernutrition, diarrhoea and other infections, and I decided to focus my efforts on finding out how to improve their state.

After a doctorate in epidemiology in the United Kingdom, I went back to Pelotas in the extreme south of Brazil, and dedicated my career to doing research on breastfeeding, undernutrition and child infections. I helped set up the 1982 Pelotas birth cohort study, which is still ongoing, and carried out research that helped establish the role of breastfeeding on the prevention of infant mortality. Living in one of the most unequal countries in the world in the 1970s and 1980s, a major concern with inequalities in health was built into all my research endeavours.

My current work is focused on three themes, as follows. Life-course epidemiology with the sustained study of the three Pelotas birth cohorts (1982, 1993 and 2004); inequalities in health; and the evaluation of interventions to improve the health of mothers and children. My interests have taken me beyond Brazil, to help carry out several research projects in Africa, Asia and other Latin American countries.

I am fortunate to have spent over three decades doing work that I care about, and to have helped train a wonderful team of epidemiologists in Pelotas.

Brazilian citizen. MD (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) and PhD (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine). Emeritus professor at the Federal University of Pelotas, visiting professor at the Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. President-Elect of the International Epidemiological Association.

cvictora@gmail.com
 Christel Lamberg-Allardt



I was born in Helsinki, Finland, and have always lived here. I have been working in the vitamin D field since my Master’s thesis in 1979.

Vitamin D is a fascinating nutrient in that it would not be needed in the diet if we get enough sunshine. Rickets was common in Finland still in the 1950s when vitamin D prophylaxis of children was started. Although we have some sunlight during the winter months in Southern Finland, there is no UVB-irradiation for the synthesis of vitamin D in the skin. Thus, we realised that vitamin D deficiency could be quite common in Finland in all population groups. We have studied vitamin D status in all age groups and genders in Finland, as well as in collaborative projects in Europe and in Bangladesh.

Vitamin D insufficiency is indeed very common in the world. We have focused on vitamin D status in relation to bone health and studied different ways to improve it, taking into account different food habits. Lately we have also focused on other nutrients in relation to bone health as well as vitamin D and other health outcomes. Although I have focused on mainly on specific nutrients I have always had the public health nutrition aspect as a target for our research.

Finnish citizen. Currently head of department and adjunct professor, university lecturer in nutrition, department of food and environmental sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. Involved in nutrition policy in Finland and Scandinavia. Association founding member.

christel.lamberg-allardt@helsinki.fi
Christopher Wharton



I developed an interest in food systems, sustainability, and public health through a series of incremental realisations. During my undergraduate and master’s training, I learned about nutrition education techniques and behaviour change interventions. I came to realise, however, that much of this area seemed to be focused solely on individual changes to improve health. I also noticed that many colleagues around me seemed to believe that real change could only be achieved through enhanced personal responsibility for health.

This never really explained the whole picture for me. It wasn’t until I began a postdoctoral research assistantship under Dr. Kelly Brownell at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, that I learned just how important environmental and policy factors are in determining an individual’s ability to remain healthy and fit. During my time at the Rudd Center, I developed the belief that personal or individual responsibility for health really can be achieved only when the food and physical activity environments are built to support individual efforts at being healthy. That is, only when social responsibility for health comes first can personal responsibility follow.

Once I became an assistant professor, I realised I needed to move my focus further upstream, considering not only health outcomes as end results, but also taking into consideration the very sources of our food and their availability to various populations. This meant considering seriously not only how healthy our food supply was, but also the ethical and sustainability-related implications of its production. As such, I now focus on local food production and various mechanisms to improve access to these nutritious whole foods for low-income populations. I also work to discover ways in which local, alternative food systems can become viable in the locations in which they operate.

US citizen. Currently Assistant Professor of Nutrition at Arizona State University (ASU), and affiliated faculty of the School of Sustainability at ASU. Am conducting US Department of Agriculture-funded research focused on improving access to local farmers’ markets through food assistance programmes and related technology.

Christopher.Wharton@asu.edu
 
 Claus Leitzmann



Taking a broad view of different aspects has been part of my life’s experience. I had the privilege to grow up on a farm and go to school in the city. This allowed me to see my then small world from the rural and also the urban perspectives. After school I was an apprentice and journeyman in different regions in Germany and Switzerland as a gardener, which deepened my insights in nature in general and my knowledge about the practical aspects of food production in particular. My university training at Capital University, Columbus, Ohio in chemistry, and the University of Minnesota in microbiology and biochemistry including nutrition science, was a contrasting theoretical programme.

After twelve years in the new world (USA), working among others at the University of California, Los Angeles (with the biochemist and Nobel laureate Paul Boyer), and surrounded by obesity, I worked for five years with malnourished children in Thailand –two totally different worlds. After returning to Germany in 1974 I taught students – also from abroad – and carried out research projects in various countries around the globe, which has kept my view open and comprehensive. My interest in wholesome nutrition, vegetarianism and nutrition ecology reflects my concern about the sustainability of our food systems and ways of life – and the future of mankind. This concern was the deciding factor to initiate together with Geoffrey Cannon the concept of The New Nutrition Science project.

German citizen. Former professor of nutrition (developing countries), University of Giessen, 1978-1998. Member of the board of several foundations, scientific organizations and journals. Advisor to the German Ministry of Technical Cooperation. Former Treasurer of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS). Co-convenor, IUNS initiative on the New Nutrition Science project. Author/co-author of 30 books including Human Nutrition (with Ibrahim Elmadfa); Wholesome Nutrition; Vegetarianism; Nutrition ecology; Bioactive Substances in Foods. Forthcoming book (with Geoffrey Cannon) The New Nutrition Science (Wiley-Blackwell 2010). Association founding member.

ClausLeitzmann@aol.com
 Denise Costa Coitinho

In the South, public health is often a very serious business. It is bound to be a central concern of government. Born in 1960 in São Paulo, I was brought up and lived my teens during the hard years of military dictatorship between the mid-1960s and mid-1980s. Like everybody of my student generation, I soon learned that when living under such regimes, saying what you really think, and even just hanging around with friends, can be dangerous. At that time, some student and other leaders in Brazil died defending their ideals and beliefs in social justice and human rights.

This experience has made a lifelong impression on me and my friends and colleagues from those years. Democracy, freedom of political expression and speech, equality, and the right of equal access to public goods, are precious and often have to be fought for. And that’s what we did. This was the context within which I chose to work on food and nutrition problems and opportunities. I found out that there was an undergraduate course on nutrition at the University of São Paulo. On my first day at USP, I decided to commit myself to public health nutrition.

Since then I have had almost 25 years of professional experience in food security and nutrition policies and programmes. This has included extensive experience in government, developing, implementing and evaluating rights-based nutrition programmes at the country level. Working as Director of Nutrition for my Government I learnt how important it is for economically developing countries to act supranationally in nutrition, creating strong bonds and networks with other countries. In this way it is possible to maintain a high level political dialogue to voice concerns, experiences and needs to the international nutrition community, to actively influence the global agenda, and to ensure that international assistance is responsive to actual country needs. My experience as a mother of three children – all boys – has also shaped my thinking about food and nutrition in the world we live in now.

Brazilian citizen. MSc from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; PhD from the University of São Paulo. After my MSc I worked with UNICEF in Africa. From 1998 to 2008 I was a researcher, then senior lecturer, in public health nutrition at the University of Brasília. My work there, with colleagues, included development and implementation of the first food security and nutrition policy blueprint for the Americas. While retaining my university position, from 1998 to 2003 I helped to create and then was director of the food and nutrition policy unit (CGPAN) at the Ministry of Health in Brasília. Within Brazil my work included working with Minister of Health José Serra on national programmes designed to ensure household food security in impoverished communities. I was responsible for developing in consultation with main stakeholders Brazil’s official food and nutrition policy and all derived programmes, including implementing the Brazilian dietary guidelines, micronutrient malnutrition interventions, food assistance and cash-transfer programmes. With colleagues I developed and advocated the position of Brazil and countries from the South on infant and young child feeding as Brazilian representative on this topic at WHO meetings; this is now the basis of the UN Global Strategy.

In 2004 I became Director of the Nutrition for Health and Development Department of WHO in Geneva. During this time I was vice-chair of the UN System Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN). In December 2007 I was seconded by WHO to Rome as co-ordinator of the REACH initiative headed by the UN Food Programme, designed to alleviate child hunger and undernutrition. I am now back in WHO in Geneva, working on country-focused nutrition capacity development. This project looks at building technical skills, and also leadership and strategic management capacities which, in my view, are the most important way to generate lasting change. Association Council member.

coitinhod@who.int
 Elva Gisladóttir



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

 Eva Roos



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
 Fabio Gomes



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
 Geoffrey Cannon



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
 Harriet Kuhnlein

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

 Heinz Freisling



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
 Ibrahim Elmadfa



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
 Inês Rugani

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

 Joyce Kikafunda



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
 Joy Ngo



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.

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

 Lluis Serra-Majem



I live between the Canary Islands, Barcelona, and the world, defending and promoting public health nutrition and, in particular, the traditional Mediterranean Diet.

The Mediterranean diet is an enormous cultural heritage accumulated during millennia and passed down uninterruptedly from generation to generation. It has evolved by welcoming and wisely incorporating new food items and techniques, thanks to its strategic geographical position, and its capacity of miscegenation and exchange of populations from the entire Mediterranean seaboard. It has been, and still is, a dynamic and vital cultural heritage.

Our society needs to be warned, informed and educated about the Mediterranean diet, to avoid its dilapidated descent into oblivion, which would have disastrous consequences for all of us who live in the region. Disastrous for our health and also for our agriculture, and traditional countryside, for this would cause a progressive abandonment of farmlands, with the consequent exodus of the rural population to cities.

Since 1996 I have been President of the Mediterranean Diet Foundation, a non-profit organisation (www.fdmed.org). The protection of the Mediterranean diet is an enormous task, involving resources that not all Mediterranean countries can afford. What’s needed is international recognition, such as that of UNESCO including the Mediterranean Diet in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Spanish citizen, born in Barcelona in 1959. Medical doctor (MD, and also PhD). Professor of Public Health at the University of Gran Canaria, and also holds a UNESCO Chair. Director of the Public Health Nutrition Research Center at the University of Barcelona. Have authored more than 550 publications and around 200 indexed scientific papers. A total of 52 books written and edited, and around 200 chapters and editorials, prologues and presentations.

My book Nutrición y Salud Pública is a well recognised reference in the field. I serve as visiting professor for several universities in Europe and South America, and am President or Honorary Member of several foundations and scientific societies. President and founder of the NGO Nutrition without Borders and President of the First World Congress of Public Health Nutrition, held in Barcelona in 2006. Association Council member.

lserra@dcc.ulpgc.es
Marion Nestle



I’ve always loved food. I grew up in the World War 2 years of rationing and deprivation but got sent to a small camp in Vermont one summer run by a fabulous cook. She and her husband had spent many years in China and she knew what to do with fresh ingredients. She ran a large ‘Victory’ vegetable garden and if we were good campers, we got to pick vegetables for dinner. I tasted everything, and a freshly picked green bean warm from the sun was a revelation.

I went to college hoping to study about food but there were only two choices, agriculture (but I’m a city girl) and dietetics. I picked dietetics by default, and lasted exactly one day. The next year, I tried public health but it was so easy for me that I thought I wasn’t learning anything. It didn’t occur to me at the time that it was easy because I think like a public health person, and it took a long time to get back to it.

I ended up a scientist and didn’t rediscover food until my first teaching job in the Brandeis biology department. The department had rules that instructors could only teach the same course three years in a row (so it wouldn’t get stale) and you had to teach whatever was needed whether you knew anything about it or not. I was given a nutrition course and it was like falling in love. I’ve never looked back.

I taught nutrition to medical students at UCSF for eight years and when that job fell apart (I was fired, basically), I was told I had better get some nutrition credentials so I went to public health school, and food, science, and public health came together at long last.

My current interest in the role of the food industry in food politics dates from the early 1990s when I was invited to speak at a meeting on behavioural determinants of cancer sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and run by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. Most of the speakers were anti-cigarette activist physicians and one after another showed slides of cigarette marketing in remote regions of the world. One showed slides of cigarette marketing aimed at children. I had seen such marketing, of course, but never paid much attention to its pervasiveness or invisibility. I thought: we should be doing this for Coca-Cola.

I started noticing and writing articles relating aspects of food marketing to obesity. The result was Food Politics. Soon after it appeared, I stopped chairing my department, after 15 years, which freed me up to do more writing. The department now links nutrition, food studies (a field we started in 1996), and public health—three fields that are inextricably linked in the way I think about public health.

US citizen. Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University; chair from 1988-2003. Also Professor of Sociology at NYU and Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. Degrees include PhD in molecular biology and MPH in public health nutrition, both from the University of California, Berkeley. Have held faculty positions at Brandeis University and the UCSF School of Medicine. From 1986-88, senior nutrition policy advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services, and managing editor of the 1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health.

Author of several prize-winning books: Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (2002, revised edition, 2007); Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety (2003, revised edition 2010), What to Eat (2006); and Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine (2008). Newest book is Feed Your Pet Right, co-authored with Malden Nesheim, published May 2010. Writes a monthly Food Matters column for the San Francisco Chronicle; blogs almost daily at www.foodpolitics.com and at the Atlantic Food Channel at http://amcblogmte4.atlantic-media.us/food/nutrition; and twitters @marionnestle.

www.foodpolitics.com

 Mark Lawrence



My very first nutrition job involved translating dietary survey findings into interventions designed to improve ways of life of local school communities. This was in the mid-1980s post-Ottawa Charter health promotion era in Australia. We quickly learned that these programmes had limited value when the wider environments within which people lived frustrated healthy eating. Within indigenous communities, for example, it was not uncommon to have fruit and vegetables unavailable in remote stores, while cans of cooled soft drinks were readily available in manufacturer-supplied refrigerators.

During this period I was fortunate to work with a number of generous mentors and to be inspired by public health nutrition leaders including Barbara Smith, Mark Wahlqvist and Tim Lang. They challenged and taught me to extend the scope of my thinking, from nutrient concepts related to individuals’ diets, to the broader relationships that exist between food systems and population health.

In the 1990s I managed the Victorian Food and Nutrition Policy, and later the Nutrition section of what is now Food Standards Australia New Zealand). I learned that current food policies and regulatory environments are creating food systems that are non-sustainable, inequitable in provision of affordable and nutritious food, and that contribute to the escalating prevalence of diet-related chronic diseases. Public health nutritionists are especially well placed to challenge the business-as-usual model for food systems and provide evidence-based solutions.

Today I work at a university-based food policy unit that is actively involved in public health nutrition research, teaching and advocacy. Our goal is to reform food policies and regulations so as to improve the structure and operation of food systems so as to protect and promote environmental, economic, social and health outcomes. I’ve learned that while providing evidence to inform policy and practice is essential, evidence doesn’t speak for itself. I have needed to increase my critical analytical skills to appreciate the roles of politics, contexts and stakeholders in explaining how and why food policy is made in practice.

If we better understand policy-making, we are better placed to integrate public health nutrition considerations into decision-making processes and therefore improve policy outcomes. Also I’ve continued to learn the value and rewards of working closely with colleagues who are passionate about food policy research, teaching and advocacy. Many colleagues work in disciplines such as law, environmental science and economics that complement public health nutrition. They are providing the expertise to review legislation, and to understand where to intervene in components of the food system and develop cost-effective policy solutions.

Australian citizen. Associate Professor (Public Health Nutrition), Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. Director, Food Policy Unit, WHO Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention, Deakin University and Chairperson, Victorian Food Policy Coalition. Member of: the NHMRC Dietary Guidelines Working Committee; the Victorian Food Safety Council; and advisory committees for Food Standards Australia New Zealand.

Actively involved in food policy research and practice in Australia and Pacific island countries, with emphasis on environmental sustainability, social equity and nutritional health outcomes. Convenor of Public Health Nutrition teaching at Deakin University. Co-edited (with Tony Worsley) the reference book, ‘Public Health Nutrition: From Principles to Practice’, Allen & Unwin, 2007 and currently preparing a book analysing the science, ethics and politics of mandatory folic acid fortification. Association Secretary-General.

lawrence@deakin.edu.au
Michael Latham



I was born in Tanzania where my father was a doctor. From early childhood my goal was always to attend medical school and then to return to Tanzania to do the kind of exciting and humanitarian medical and public health work that as a schoolboy in Africa I saw my father doing. I achieved that ambition, and to this day I think that my most meaningful, educational and significant job was in the six years I spent as a ‘Bush Doctor’ running a hospital, doing surgery, obstetrics, and everything, and being responsible for the public health services in a large district.

This also was my introduction to nutrition. I conducted and published research on the control of anaemia, and I worked on a multi-disciplinary applied nutrition project in remote Songea District. As director of the nutrition unit I was overseer, and in charge of all nutrition activities in Julius Nyerere’s new government. In Dar es Salaam I was considered to be the founder of the International School of Tanganyika, and served as the first Chairman of its Board of Directors. This was the first non-racial school in Tanzania, and it has continued to thrive.

My political awakening came when as an 18 year old medical student I participated in an anti-nuke rally in Trafalgar Square in London where the main speaker was Bertrand Russell. I have remained an activist. I led and was arrested for anti-apartheid demonstrations at Cornell, and was much involved there, with Daniel Berrigan and others, against the Vietnam war. I have for many years been very involved in activities and writings on human rights to food, adequate nutrition, and health

I am a medical doctor with graduate degrees in Public Health (MPH, Harvard University) and Tropical Medicine (London University), with internationally recognised expertise in the major nutritional problems of economically developing countries. In research, teaching and public service I have been particularly involved with breastfeeding, infant and child health; parasitic infections and their relationship to health; micronutrient deficiencies especially iron deficiency anaemias and vitamin A deficiency; and also nutrition and human rights. In collaborative research demonstrating the impact of intestinal helminths and schistosomiasis on nutritional status and health, Dr. Lani Stephenson, my wife and colleague, was often the principal investigator.

For ten years I worked in Tanzania as a physician, and then as Director of the Ministry of Health Nutrition Unit. Then for 25 years I served as director of the Program in International Nutrition at Cornell University, which during this period grew into the largest most widely recognised such programme at any university in the US; and then as Professor of International Nutrition until 2004 and now as a graduate school professor, emeritus professor and international professor. I am the author of several books, and over 400 published chapters or papers.

At Cornell I have been the mentor and advisor to over 100 graduate students, mostly PhDs, many of whom have moved on to important careers in international nutrition all over the world. I am still much involved with graduate students in international nutrition; occasional teaching both undergraduates and graduates; research mainly in Africa; and public service including work with United Nation agencies.

Over the years I have conducted research on many topics relevant to international
mutrition. Among these have been many studies on young child feeding, intestinal parasitic infections, and interventions to reduce Vitamin A deficiencies and anaemia. I have taken a leading role in policy related to breastfeeding and HIV/AIDS. This recently included an African four-country study for UNICEF and major talks in Vienna, Venezuela, Washington, Boston, Alabama, Antwerp, Durban and Vancouver, to mention a few.

A British citizen, and now recently also a dual UK-US citizen. MPH Harvard, DTM&H London University, MD Dublin University. Professor of International Nutrition at Cornell University, 1968-2004, since then Emeritus and International Professor. Areas of expertise include medicine, public health, international nutrition, tropical medicine, child health, breastfeeding, micronutrient deficiencies.

In 1965 I was appointed OBE for distinguished service in Tanzania. In 1992 was awarded the Gopalan Oration Gold Medal. In 1993 was the first recipient of the Kellogg International Nutrition Prize of Society for International Nutrition Research of the American Society of Nutritional Sciences. In 1995 was given the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action Award for outstanding contributions to WABA and breastfeeding. In 1996 was visiting professor, University of Oslo, Norway, and in 1999 adjunct professor, Laval University, Canada. In 2005 was presented with Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Public Health Association. In 2009 I became identified as a Living Legend at the International Conference on Nutrition in Bangkok.

mcl6@cornell.edu

 Nahla Hwalla



My commitment is to keep nutrition on the agenda of my country and region. I have devoted my career to develop and expand the nutrition and dietetics programme in Lebanon, seeking national, regional and international recognition, and to establish nutrition and dietetics as a recognised and respected profession in the region.

I earned my PhD in basic medical sciences (nutrition) from the American University of Beirut, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University – St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital. I am also a registered dietitian with the American Dietetic Association.

Lebanon and the countries of the Middle East face unprecedented nutrition transition challenges. To tackle nutrition problems related to health and well being of the people of Lebanon and the region is essential to me. I established the first academic programme in nutrition and dietetics in the country and the region at the nutrition and food sciences (NFSC) department at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. The programme has grown from an unknown specialty to a highly recognised and sought-after field of study. In recognition of its contribution to nutrition, the NFSC Department was designated as a WHO Collaborating Center for research, training and outreach in food and nutrition in December 2007, where I act as the head of the center. The first country-wide associated research unit for undernutrition and obesity in Lebanon was established in 2009.

I have directed my research on nutrition in Lebanon and the region focusing on obesity, its prevalence, determinants, and dietary manipulation to curb its effects. In addition, I have provided Lebanon with the first country profile on nutrition. I founded the first NGO for nutritionists and dieticians in Lebanon and the region, the Lebanese Association for Nutrition and Food Sciences (LANFS). Through LANFS, I formulated the national decree for licensing dietitians by the Lebanese government; hence making dietetics a protected profession in the country.

Lebanese Citizen. Currently Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural & Food Sciences at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, and Professor in Nutrition .Founder and President of the Lebanese Association for Nutrition and Food Sciences. Elected as AODA Country Representative. I also serve on the WHO Expert Advisory Panel on Nutrition (appointed by the director-general of WHO), and as an expert consultant to FAO, WHO, and IAEA and various national governments on nutrition-related issues. I am currently working on several projects related to formulation of regional strategies for nutrition and establishing food based dietary guidelines with WHO, FAO, and the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. Other publications in internationally refereed journals are on obesity, metabolic syndrome, nutritional assessment, body composition, dietary fats and plasma lipids, diet composition and appetite hormones. Association Council member.

nahla@aub.edu.lb
 Nkosi Mbuya



I was born in the rural town of Nyamandlovu in Zimbabwe, but have spent most of my life in Bulawayo. I remember vividly visiting my grandparents who lived in rural areas every other school holiday, witnessing as well as experiencing the various consequences of poverty and under-development. When I look back now, I am amazed by the coping strategies that the community employed to overcome their challenges. It is the memories of these visits that have shaped the way I view development work in general and public health nutrition specifically.

Both my maternal and paternal grandmothers, despite having no formal education, were well aware of the importance of good nutrition for children. Their concept of a balanced diet was as good as a college educated dietitian could ever prescribe from the available foods. A slice or two of bread with our tea in the morning, and a couple of cups of cow or goat milk afterwards. Mid morning, snacks of fruit from the garden or the wild, then our vegetables at lunch time, and the long-awaited pieces of meat only after finishing what was available for dinner. Washing our hands before and after meals was insisted upon, and an early afternoon as well as evening bath was a must. All this was before the era of development work and health and nutrition education.

Blessed with all these wonderful memories I sometimes wonder, what assumptions do we or should we make when seeking to address the problems of those in need? Are we really addressing the right problems? Do we professionals really know better about the solutions to these problems than ordinary people do? What should be our role? Experts, or facilitators?

Zimbabwean citizen. Currently nutrition specialist with the World Bank’s South Asia health nutrition and population unit. Prior to joining the Bank, I held positions of learning and impact assessment advisor with the hunger reduction team at Save the Children UK; nutrition lecturer with the University of Zimbabwe; and nutritionist with the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare in Zimbabwe. I am a founding member and past coordinator of the African nutrition graduates student network. I have a PhD in International Nutrition from Cornell University, an MSc in Community Nutrition from the University of Southampton, and a BSc Honours in Biochemistry from the University of Zimbabwe. Association founding member.

nkosi.mbuya@gmail.com
 Petra Rust



Working with children with cystic fibrosis, I learned that there are big differences in people´s attitudes towards quality of life. Young children in pain and restricted in their daily life, nevertheless laugh and enjoy their days when they are supported by parents who are aware of the limited possibilities and life expectancy of their children. It became very important for me to improve the quality of life of these children. And it was a great moment when I recognised that their everyday life did indeed get better because of my intervention and support.

During my work with disadvantaged and vulnerable groups I realised that improving knowledge on healthy ways of life – including well-balanced diets and regular physical activity - does not solve problems. Most people don´t benefit from excellent research work, or personalised nutrition. They have to manage everyday life with marginal resources.

Even though, as a nutritionist, I am very interested in the results of the latest research, I learned that health depends a lot on socio-demographic factors. Molecular biology and chemistry are relevant to the exploration of nutritional issues, but laboratory work can never replace the influence of human interaction and an been and avid interest in the human condition. Human health is determined and affected by an incredibly complex and ever shifting combination of nutritional, physical, and also social and political factors.

That’s why I attach special importance to the collective work of experts in the field of public health nutrition.

Austrian citizen. Currently Assistant Professor and Vice Study Dean at the Institute of Nutritional Sciences, University of Vienna, Austria. Vice President of the Austrian Nutrition Association. Co-Editor of Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism, Karger. Association Treasurer.

Petra.Rust@univie.ac.at

 Philip James

Born just before the Second World War, I was brought up in the mountains of Wales. Age 11 I was sent away by the local authority to Ackworth, a Quaker boarding school in Yorkshire, England, because my father, headmaster of the local grammar school, had recently died. We took our food rationing books to Ackworth. There, (unknown to me until much later) we were fed under the directions of Phyllis Williams, Hugh Sinclair's nutritionist, who had helped to implement the British wartime food policy, without which Britain might well have succumbed early on.

At Ackworth we were taught to think internationally. My mother taught me this also, because she supported the education of children in what is now Zimbabwe. Then I decided to train in medicine and go to London, which was easier to reach than the medical school in South Wales. By luck I was interviewed by two Nobel prizewinners, and entered University College. After a science as well as a medical degree, I surprised everybody including myself by ending up with excellent jobs and my career was set on a rosy course!

Then I told my boss, Lord Rosenheim, that I could not stand British medicine as it was so primitive, and that I planned to emigrate. He fixed for me to go to the British Medical Research Council Tropical Metabolism Research Unit in Jamaica, to examine child malnutrition. I ended up there in clinical charge of John Waterlow's metabolic unit for babies with kwashiorkor and marasmus. So I had to learn nutrition on the job as well as doing research.

When John Waterlow transferred from Jamaica to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, I was invited to join him as senior lecturer, and to revamp the nutrition course for postgraduates. I soon found that I was at best 48 hours ahead of the students. At the School I learned about public health and discovered the brilliance of Jerry Morris, Geoffrey Rose and others who were engrossed in tropical public health, population control, development issues, and other critical topics.

Then I was asked to go to Montserrat in place of John Waterlow, to deal with a political problem. Local leaders were claiming that the poor scholastic achievement of students was because the UK government deprived children of proper nutritional support. Bike Aksu, a PhD student, and I suddenly realised that while the children were indeed malnourished by official standards, they actually were almost all stunted (small) rather than wasted (thin).This led to the new classification of malnutrition.

Back in the UK we proposed investing in epidemiological analyses of obesity. We were landed with writing the first analysis of the obesity problem and its research needs for the UK government and the Medical Research Council. Then I was asked to join Roger Whitehead at the Dunn Nutrition Institute in Cambridge and to set up the Clinical Nutrition Centre. Thus started an exciting time. John Cummings and the late Sheila Bingham joined us, to take on the very odd problem of obesity and also to deal with the mysterious new factor – dietary fibre. The missionary surgeon Denis Burkett and physician Hugh Trowell in Uganda, were claiming that dietary fibre was crucial for avoiding the bowel and metabolic disorders of the Western world.

Then Jerry Morris phoned me, and asked me to do a TV series with him and a famous entertainer, Roy Castle, setting out why good diets and plenty of exercise were important for health. I refused, because as a reputable medical research worker I could not afford to be seen to be involved in something as crude as TV! Jerry persisted, asking me if I understood anything about the social responsibilities of science. I was shamed into agreeing, and ended up making six ten minute programmes for prime-time viewing on Sunday night. We filmed in working class family kitchens, and worked out from scratch how to limit fat, sugar and salt, which at that time were not seen to be of much importance by any senior nutritionist in the UK. Our shows turned out to be the most popular and discussed programmes on diet and nutrition that the BBC had put on since the Second World War. I had completely underestimated the importance of speaking out on public health problems.

Then in 1980 Jerry Morris, who died this year at the great age of 99, asked me to chair the infamous National Advisory Committee for Nutrition Education (NACNE), This followed the same principles, but was repeatedly attacked and then its publication sabotaged by a cabal in the Department of Health involving a Health Minister, a senior Department of Health official, and the British Nutrition Foundation (which is what we would now call a BINGO, paid for by the major British food industries and involving most if not all the top nutritionists in Britain). Caroline Walker and Geoffrey Cannon tell this story in their book The Food Scandal. This taught me how readily scientists become seduced, and that public health is a dangerous occupation if we seek to contribute new approaches which threaten big industry.

Nevertheless as the then Director of the Rowett Research Institute near Aberdeen, I was dragged into the International Union of Nutritional Sciences and also into endless WHO, Scottish, British, EU and UN consultations. I came to realise that almost all the analyses, writing – and manoeuvring – had to be done personally in ‘spare’ time. This was true when helping Scotland's health department with then one of the world's highest cardiovascular death rates; the English government who were allergic to any initiatives in public health; and the EU trying to cope with their dawning realisation that the food chain was its biggest business. Even WHO did not know how to deal with the combination of malnutrition and the so called ‘diseases of affluence’; and the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition was horrified to discover from us that the UN itself was often the biggest handicap to coherent public health developments affecting lower income countries!

For the last ten years I have been privileged to be in London running the International Obesity Task Force with a network of colleagues across the world. Now I have been ‘kicked upstairs’ to become president of its scientific association the International Association for the Study of Obesity.

Overall what have I learned? This, I think. If you can marshal your arguments properly, recruit allies to the cause and – crucially – immediately agree and adjust when you get something wrong, then it is indeed possible to contribute something to this enormously important field of public health.

I suppose that for me public health nutrition has been my hobby. So in my next life I will go in for public health nutrition as a career, instead of starting out as a clinical researcher fixated with understanding exactly why people succumbed to a particular disease, and imagining that measuring fluxes and biochemical pathways with new fancy techniques was the way to go!

British citizen. I qualified in physiology (1959) and medicine (1962) at University College London before postgraduate medical qualifications. Then I worked at the UK's MRC Unit in Tropical Metabolism in Jamaica for three years with a year at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, USA, and then became a senior lecturer at the London School of Hygiene.

Ran the Dunn Clinical Nutrition Centre 1974-1982 and was Director of the Rowett Research Institute 1982-1999. Chaired and wrote the first public health nutrition policy reports for Scotland, and several policy reports for the UK, before chairing and writing reports for WHO Europe (1986), and then the WHO 797 report on diet and public health for malnourished and chronic disease prone countries (1990). In 1996 established the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF), responsible for drafting the first WHO Technical Report (2000) on the prevention and management of obesity. Persuaded Tony Blair to create the UK Food Standards Agency, and the EU a DG SANCO and then the EU Food Standards Agency. Chaired and wrote the UN Commission's report on global issues in nutrition. Was Vice President of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences. Is President of the International Association for the Study of Obesity. Association Council member.

JeanHJames@aol.com
 Reggie Annan

Growing up in an area which could best be described as an ‘urban poor’, I was struck by the fact that there was a mixture of undernutrition and overnutrition in the same communities. One could tell that children who were undernourished came from the most poor households. Little did I know that there was a complex interaction of both biological and social factors driving these phenomena. I wanted to be a doctor so I could help, but I ended up studying nutrition.

My first encounter with public health nutrition was as an undergraduate in a university at the north of Ghana where I was studying for a BSc in community nutrition. As part of the training I did several community attachments and placements, sometimes living and working with local people, including in areas without electricity and running water, together with other students in my year. We held focus group discussions with community elders and members. We did growth monitoring, health education, nutritional rehabilitation, immunisations and several surveys.

From these experiences, I discovered that promoting health and preventing ill-health in communities through nutrition created the conditions for economic growth and development. I was also awed as I saw a mixed of social inequalities and biological factors as paths that could only lead to children not meeting their full potential. I realised that influencing policies, programmes and decision making at the highest level of society would have a stronger impact, not only on individual communities but the nation as a whole. My desire to study public health nutrition may have been born at this point.

Now that I’ve obtained a PhD and am looking forward to the future, I am committed to making a difference in the lives of local communities through research meant to lead to programmes that will impact favourably on human health and well-being. I believe that nutrition leadership is important, and I look forward to making nutrition part of the national agenda in Ghana, and globally. I believe public health nutrition is one of the most cost-effective approaches to improve health in many resource-poor settings such as so many in Africa, including my own background.

Ghanaian citizen. BSc degree in community nutrition in Ghana and thereafter studied at the University of Southampton for my MSc in public health nutrition and a PhD with a focus in nutrition and HIV infection.

Currently, I work as a research fellow with the International Malnutrition Task Force of the International Union of Nutrition Sciences at the University of Southampton. Previously, I worked in Ghana as district nutrition officer for the Nanumba district health management team of the Ghana health service and as a research assistant at the University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana. I am a member of the African Graduate Nutrition Students Network and an African Nutrition Leadership Programme graduate.

regyies@yahoo.com
 Ricardo Uauy



My interest in public health nutrition began with commitment to address social injustices in Chile and elsewhere, and to strengthen the science base of public policy. I trained in medicine in Chile. I completed training in paediatrics and neonatology as medical specialties in Boston and New Haven 1972-75, and took a doctoral degree in nutritional biochemistry and international nutrition policy at MIT in 1975-77. These credentials and working as an assistant to Nevin Scrimshaw at that time empowered me as an agent of change.

I returned to Chile in 1977 and experienced eight years of the Pinochet dictatorship, during which time the economic and social development of the country was abruptly and forcefully changed. Health and nutrition programmes were mostly kept in place thanks to the strength of the professional and academic community. The country unified and mobilised its democratic forces reestablishing democracy in 1990. At this time I contributed to the reorientation of national food and nutrition programmes and the transformation of research and training at the Institute of Nutrition of the University of Chile (INTA) at Santiago, in order to tackle the drastic epidemiological changes the country had experienced.

I became director of INTA in 1994, serving in that post for eight years. After completing my tenure as director of INTA I became IUNS President-elect in Vienna 2001. As IUNS President with the collaboration of many we have been able to strengthen interactions with regional societies, expand nutrition capacity building efforts, increase presence of the IUNS at all levels, engage the private sector in areas of common interest placing public interest first, and advance nutrition leadership training in all regions.

Chilean citizen. Currently Professor at the Institute of Nutrition at the University of Chile, and also of Public Health Nutrition at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. President of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences, 2005-2009. Work with the United Nations University on capacity strengthening of nutrition science and leadership training for young nutrition scientists. Chaired the consultation on Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases (WHO technical report series 916, published 2003) that gave rise to the Global Strategy for Nutrition, Diet and Physical Activity Prevention of Chronic Diseases approved by the WHO World Health Assembly in 2004. Association founding member.

uauy@inta.cl
ricardo.uauy@lshtm.ac.uk

 Roger Hughes



I grew up and have lived all my life in Australia. I initially trained and practiced as a clinical dietitian and quickly got frustrated with the downstream clinical and reactive responses to ‘affluenza’ (those preventable diet-related diseases of excess consumption). Much of what I have learned about the practice of public health nutrition, in areas such as breastfeeding promotion and maternal nutrition, has been by trial and error; borrowing, applying and evaluating ideas from others working in middle- and low-income countries, and learning from mistakes.

This experience has galvanised my belief that progress in public health depends on building capacity, notably by workforce development, and also by development of leadership, intelligence, organizations and respecting and empowering communities. I still train dietitians, but with a vision that they go on to practice and progress public health nutrition because they are better prepared for practice than I was, and have the passion required to make a difference.

Australian citizen. Currently Professor and Chair of Public Health Nutrition, University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. Visiting Professor in the School of Medicine at Trinity College Dublin. My scholarship focuses on capacity building approaches to community-based nutrition interventions in developed countries. I have a particular interest in workforce development. Since 2004 Deputy Editor of Public Health Nutrition and currently finalising a book on public health nutrition practice with Barrie Margetts. Association Vice-President (Professional Affairs)

Rhughes1@usc.edu.au
Roger Shrimpton

I come from High Wycombe in the beautiful Chiltern Hills of Buckinghamshire in the UK. While studying for my A levels I decided I wanted to do something for the starving millions in the world. After graduating with a degree in dietetics and clinical biochemistry at Surrey University in 1973, my first job was as a VSO volunteer in Indonesia working for the East Java Provincial Health Authority based in Surabaya.

There I learned the hard way what public health nutrition was, and realised that I needed to get better qualified to do this work. So I applied for a Masters at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. I got a scholarship which allowed me to go pretty much anywhere to do my thesis work, and so I went to Brazil where I met my wife and the rest is family history! I then worked eight years for the Brazilian Research Council as a researcher at their Amazonian Research Institute in Manaus, where I helped to establish the food and nutrition department and carried out research on zinc nutrition among the people of the Amazon valley. This became the subject of my PhD thesis.

In the mid 1980s I decided to move away from researching the ‘what’ of nutrition and start working on the ‘why’ and ‘how’, and joined UNICEF. I worked six years with UNICEF in Brazil helping to establish community based nutrition work in the North-East region especially, before transferring to Indonesia as the number two in the UNICEF office in Jakarta..

After seven years in Indonesia I was asked to become Chief of Nutrition with UNICEF in New York, which I did for two years before deciding for family reasons ‘to return home’ to the UK. After a brief sojourn in the UK, between 2004 and 2009 I returned to the UN as Secretary of the UN System Standing Committee on Nutrition, based in Geneva. All in all some 35 years working in nutrition in development, with 30 of these spent living and working in economically developing counties. I am now living in the Algarve in Portugal.

British citizen. BSc (Hons) in Nutrition and Dietetics, 1972. MSc in Nutrition (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), 1975. PhD 1980. From 1975-1984, worked as a research associate with the Brazilian Research Council in Manaus, Brazil. During this time conducted the first rural nutrition surveys of riverside inhabitants of the rivers Negro and Solimoes. From 1984-2000, worked for UNICEF: six years in Brazil, seven years in Indonesia, two years at headquarters in New York as Chief of Nutrition.

From 1988-1989, worked with the Cornell University Food and Nutrition Policy programme, with Per Pinstrup Andersen and Jean-Pierre Habicht. We developed the concepts of community based nutritional surveillance, as well as the protocol for a randomised controlled trial of vitamin A supplementation during infancy. From 2000 to date I havw been an honorary senior research fellow and then an honorary member of department at the Centre for International Health and Development, University College, London. From 2000-2004 I worked for UNICEF, the World Bank, WHO, and for Helen Keller International, as a freelance consultant. Among other things helped four countries (Angola, Pakistan, East Timor, and Mozambique) develop national nutrition strategies.

From 2004-2009 I was Secretary, UN System Standing Committee on Nutrition. Responsibilities included organising the SCN annual sessions and producing SCN publications including its reports on the world nutrition situation. Association founding member, initial Secretary-General, now Council member.

roger.shrimpton@sapo.pt

 Ruth Oniang'o



I am from Kenya. The wounds of my country and of other African countries will heal only when the fundamental issues of inequity and social exclusion are addressed. Africans must themselves put in place mechanisms that will address problems at the core of society, of injustice and all manner of discrimination, along gender, religious, age, social class, and ethnic lines. We must serious about protecting our children and women who die needlessly from preventable conditions that arise out of neglect and misuse of resources. Children die from malnutrition related conditions and women die during child birth due to anaemia and poor care.

All my professional life has been spent working on Africa's food security issues, with a special commitment to maternal and child health. I have participated in many international conferences and other meetings as a participant, consultant and resource person and facilitator, often representing my country or Africa as a whole.

I worked in the past with the UN system including with UNICEF, FAO; with foundations and the food industry; and with the centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Always I am trying to engage them to do right by nutrition. I also work with farming communities, men as well as women, trying to exchange ideas on how best good nutrition can be achieved at both family and child levels. Recently I have been very much involved with trying to see whether farmers can improve their productivity through increased use of good inputs and with biofortification, working with HarvestPlus, to enhance the nutrient content of commonly eaten foods.

I am an editor, organiser and advocate. People tell me I am good at advocacy and lobbying, and these skills were enhanced through participation in the Kenyan Parliament.

Kenyan citizen. Hold a PhD in Food Science and Nutrition. I was educated in Kenya and the USA, at the University of Nairobi, and at Washington State University, Pullman. As member of the Kenyan Parliament for five years, advocated to minimise poverty and hunger. Now an independent consultant. Founder and editor-in-chief of the African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND). Serve on a number of Boards, both national and international. Leader of The Rural Outreach Programme, a non-government organisation committed to the improvements of rural livelihoods. Association founding member.

oniango@iconnect.co.ke

Shiriki Kumanyika



I was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, at a time when black Americans in southern states like Maryland went to racially segregated schools. Segregation was surely the most dominant social factor shaping my early childhood, having affected the life choices and chances of my parents, my family, and our entire networks. The fortunate aspects for me were that in my segregated public school I had top notch black educators who really cared about us and instilled a sense that we could be high achievers, and had an obligation to be exemplars – to show that we could compete and excel in the larger society. Food and nutrition were not yet in the picture – not, that is, academically.

Moving to integrated schools and into the big wide world took me to Syracuse University in upstate New York for college, with a major in psychology and minor in sociology, but really a major in the civil rights movement, because the time was 1961 to 1965. It was a bit hard to focus on things inside the classroom, but I made it through, went to New York City and took a job as a social caseworker in order to try to help people, which morphed to jobs in various health areas such as family planning and addiction treatment. A Masters in social work did not decrease my then high level of frustration at how little I could really help.

When by chance I found myself in Ithaca, also in upstate New York, I discovered that studying and working in nutrition was perhaps a more concrete and certain way to help people. Daphne Roe, who became my advocate (I needed one considering that my background was social work rather than biochemistry or anything with any nutrient density to it) and dissertation advisor in the nutrition programme at Cornell was a great model, with her UK-framed perspective on public health nutrition.

I pursued studies on salt and hypertension, which plunged me immediately into public health policy issues because we knew even then (in the mid 1970s) that dietary salt reduction was warranted. I figured out that there was such a thing as epidemiology, and then met Jean-Pierre Habicht who began to talk to me about two-by-two tables. I stayed on the Cornell faculty to teach community nutrition, but my appetite for public health ultimately led me to leave idyllic Ithaca for Baltimore to study public health at Johns Hopkins (choosing that location was not entirely a coincidence given family there).

The circle began to take me back to wanting to help people, now by directly studying things of a social, cultural, and political nature. I stayed on the Hopkins faculty in epidemiology, was pulled into the (re) discovery of health disparities, and drew on my personal experiences of how injustice could lead to poor health. Discovered that obesity was a particular issue for black women and became a so-called expert on that topic – this was before the general obesity epidemic. Mostly I was considered a cardiovascular epidemiologist or nutritional epidemiologist.

My current work is completely dominated by the obesity epidemic, although that is a good thing if the focus and energy associated with my efforts actually lead to positive change. My two main platforms have been the International Obesity Task Force, courtesy of Association Council member Philip James, and an organisation that I founded in 2002 – the African American Collaborative Obesity Research Network (www.aacorn.org).

The reason for starting the network will be obvious. In 2010 obesity is more common in black women (compared with US white women and also with black men even given the high rates of obesity in US people overall), as it was in 1984 when I discovered this. But it is now also more common in black than white girls, which is a recent phenomenon. So I formed the network because I thought that a little help from and for my friends could accelerate progress, and my friends could become each others’ friends, and so forth. At this writing, given what we now know about the political, social and cultural aspects of food, and the need for a major focus on public health and policy to reverse the epidemic, I am completely at home in this world of endeavour, and like to think that this is also a network to which I belong.

US citizen. Professor of epidemiology in the department of biostatistics and epidemiology and the department of pediatrics (gastroenterology, nutrition section) at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philaldelphia; Also at Penn: Associate Dean for health promotion and disease prevention in the School of Medicine; senior scholar in the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics; senior Fellow in the Center for Public Health Initiatives, the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics, and the Institute on Aging; and faculty fellow in the Penn Institute for Urban Research. Degrees include MSc in social work from Columbia University, PhD in human nutrition from Cornell, and MPH from Johns Hopkins. Have held faculty positions at Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Penn State University, the University of Illinois at Chicago (where I was head of the nutrition department for three years), and Penn, where I have been since 1999.

Author of numerous research articles, reviews, and book chapters related to the themes in my work. Member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and service on several IOM committees related to obesity or women’s health. Member of the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research panels responsible for the 2007 and 2009 cancer prevention reports. Lead editor, with Ross Brownson, of the Handbook of Obesity Prevention (2007), a primarily US focused text on understanding the landscape for obesity prevention and considering interventions across life stages and in various settings. Lead editor of a 2010 IOM report, Bridging the Evidence Gap in Obesity Prevention: A Framework to Inform Decision Making. This urges policy makers and researchers to consider obesity from a systems perspective and take a broad and transdisciplinary view of what constitutes evidence and how to generate it. Extensive service on expert panels in the US and global nutrition spheres. These have included being vice-chair of the WHO/FAO panel responsible for the 2003 ‘916’ report on Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases.

s.kumanyi@mail.med.upenn.edu
 
 Sidiga Washi



I grew up for the first 17 wonderful years of my life in Port Sudan City, the third largest city in Sudan. One thing about living in a port city is that you see what is coming and going. When we were little we saw many United Nation agencies come into the port bringing goods, and we saw the World Food Programme import canned food that was later distributed to us in primary school. In the early 1980s I saw hungry people coming from the famine areas in western Sudan and that took my complete attention, to do something about this. After finishing my first degree, I decided to pursue my graduate studies in the field of community nutrition to help such communities overcome their nutrition problems.

Visiting and working outside my country has given me an opportunity to understand the various causes of dietary behaviour that lead to nutrition related problems. These need to be addressed at various levels. Also as a woman and an activist, I realise that women are most susceptible to lower status in nutrition despite the fact that they are the ones that deal with household aspects of feeding. This has led me to look into the gender disparities in nutrition in my country.

Sudanese citizen. Work in United Arab Emirates since 2008. Currently professor of community nutrition, United Arab Emirates University in Al-Ain. Former Dean of the School of Health Sciences at Ahfad University for women in Sudan. Recently I was awarded a grant from the Emirates foundation to lead a team on a research focuses on interventions aimed at preventing obesity among school children in UAE. I was a trained leader in nutrition and was a former president of the Sudanese Nutrition and Environment Society. I was also a member of the executive committee of the Middle East and North Africa Nutrition Association (MENANA). I am a very active community nutrition advocate via media and I present at many professional nutrition meetings. Am currently teaching a course in public health nutrition. Association founding member.

sidigaw@uaeu.ac.ae
Ted Greiner



When in 1975-1976 I took Michael Latham’s introductory and advanced courses in international nutrition at Cornell University, New York, I decided on this as my career direction. It appeared to be a way to make a difference for millions of disadvantaged people in the low-income countries. Because I doubted (and continue to do so) that professionals from rich countries can or should play very active technical roles (other than capacity building), I chose for my master’s research an issue where rich countries certainly were the problem: the impact of commercial baby food advertising on infant feeding patterns, conducted in St. Vincent, West Indies.

During the spring of 1977 I lived for a few months in Ghana and my former wife lived in Cote d'Ivoire, as we did a study for FAO on the economic value of breastfeeding in west Africa. It was the most detailed of such studies at the time. Published in 1979 by FAO in English and French, they told me a few years later that it was their ‘best seller’. (It was of course sent for free to anyone who requested it).

In 1978-81,with a Rockefeller Foundation grant, I planned, managed and organised a three-part evaluation of a 3-year breastfeeding promotion project in Yemen. This was the topic of my PhD dissertation. In the following decades, the average duration of breastfeeding there doubled in both rural and urban areas. From 1983 to 1985, I returned to Yemen, employed by the ministry of health to help set up its first nutrition unit.

Since then I have worked as a consultant for UN agencies, the World Bank, and others, dealing with a large number of governments and their agencies and with civil society organisations. Much of my work has been concerned with capacity building on policy, programme and research approaches in low-income countries, mostly dealing with maternal and child nutrition, and often specifically with breastfeeding.

From 1985-1994, I was a dedicated full-time consultant to the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) based at Uppsala University’s International Maternal and Child Health unit (IMCH). I assisted in planning, follow up and evaluation of their large nutrition portfolio in Asia and Africa, and their support to international breastfeeding non-governmental organisations. Then until 2004 I remained at IMCH as associate professor of International Child Health, running multi-year Sida-funded capacity building programmes for Tanzania and Zimbabwe that strengthened everything from technical nutrition capacity, to accounting, to libraries. Experts from Sweden, the US or the UK provided specific defined services to meet their identified needs and requirements. Sida really does most of its development assistance this way – the budgets are negotiated at a higher level, but ministry departmental officials made most of the decisions on how the money allocated to them would be used.

During this period I continued to do consultancy work, largely with the World Bank and the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA). At Uppsala my students’ research work focused on public health nutrition issues related to infant feeding, micronutrient malnutrition, and obesity. Most of them came from economically developing countries and did their research in their countries.

During my 19 years at Uppsala University, I made duty travel visits of an average duration of two weeks perhaps 25 times to Tanzania, 20 to Zimbabwe, 15 to Bangladesh (mainly to northern rural areas), 10 to Zambia, 7 to South Africa, 3 to Sri Lanka, 2 to China, and 2 to Yemen. I lived in India most of the time during 1997-1998 working on ICDS projects in three states and travelled there perhaps a dozen other times. Perhaps half of this time in the field was used for planning, follow up, or evaluation of projects and the other half was for capacity building.

During 2001-2002 I spent about 6 months living in Penang, Malaysia helping WABA, mainly in planning the technical components of their forum in Arusha, Tanzania, and the preceding WABA-UNICEF Colloquium on HIV and Infant Feeding, as well as editing the published proceedings from the latter.

From 2004-2008 I worked with the Program for Appropriate Technologies in Health (PATH), largely as director of the Ultra Rice Project (focusing on fortifying rice in China, India, Brazil and Colombia) and in research and advocacy efforts on HIV and infant feeding, largely in Rwanda, Cote d'Ivoire, and Kenya. In 2008 I became professor of nutrition at Hanyang University in Seoul Korea where I teach a wide range of nutrition courses and assist with a number of public health nutrition research studies.

In an unjust world, most of the resources available for combating poverty and malnutrition reside among the poor themselves. However, expecting impoverished populations and communities to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, while they are being held down by health and nutritional problems that sap their energy and inhibit their children from learning, just adds insult to injury.

Dual citizen of USA and Sweden. MAEd, MSc, PhD. Studied at Cornell University. From 1978-1985 based half the time in Yemen. From 1985-2004 worked in Sweden, with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) based at the University of Uppsala. Throughout this time and afterwards have been involved with the UN System Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN). As far as I know, I am the only person who has attended all (but one) of the 24 full SCN meetings that have taken place since 1987. I was chair of the bilateral constituency from 1990-1995, and have been chair of the civil society organization constituency since 2008.

From 2004-2008 worked with PATH in Washington DC. From 2008, professor of nutrition at Hanyang University in Seoul, Korea. Author or coauthor of 67 peer reviewed journal articles, 33 letters to journal editors, ten books or published monographs, 43 book chapters or articles in published meetings proceedings or newsletters, 23 published abstracts, 76 presentations at scientific meetings, and 24 major consultant reports.

tedgreiner@yahoo.com
 
Tina Karapetyan



I was born in Armenia in 1980. During the past decades my country has endured great environmental, political and economic turmoil. The earthquake of 1988 in Leninakan, Armenia’s second largest city, took 50,000 lives and completely destroyed three cities and many villages. As a former Soviet republic, Armenia faced socio-economic chaos following the 1991 collapse of the USSR. These resulted in immeasurable psychological devastation, and economic and other deprivation beyond the capacity of Armenia to address. I know first-hand about the difficulties people face due to malnutrition and other socio-economic problems. After I graduated from medical school, I became very interested in public health. I worked in different programmes within Armenia, advocating healthy ways of life and healthy diets.

My career as a healthcare professional started from my work at Yerevan State Medical University’s department of epidemiology. After having worked there for two years, I was granted an award for completion of my master's degree in the USA. During my US studies I was involved in different projects, including the New York State Department of Health WIC (women, infants, and children) nutritional programme.

Working on the evaluation of that project made me think about the differences in public nutrition problems in countries like the USA, in contrast with much less resourced countries like Armenia. Ever since I have been very interested in public health nutrition, which is why I was more than happy for the opportunity to work at the Hellenic Health Foundation, where we have many public health nutrition-related programmes running.

My job requires daily communication with people of different nationalities from all over the world. Based on what I've learned from all of them, public health nutrition is an essential aspect everywhere. The world needs to deal with these issues, and the world needs truly dedicated people for that purpose.

I am a citizen of Armenia. Currently resident in Greece. Medical doctor, MSc in epidemiology. Researcher at the Hellenic Health Foundation, Athens, Greece. Currently involved in projects on health and ageing (CHANCES- Consortium on Health and Ageing Network of Cohorts in Europe and the United States) Formerly an assistant professor at the department of epidemiology of Yerevan State Medical University in Armenia. Active member of the Association of Armenian microbiologists, parasitologists and epidemiologists.

tina.karapetyan@hhf-greece.gr
 Tom Baranowski



Serendipity got me interested in children’s diets and physical activity. (Long story; ask me about it when we meet!) While initially focused on chronic disease prevention among children through healthier diets and physical activity, especially involving families, the emerging pediatric obesity epidemic focused my work on obesity prevention, which is another path to adult chronic disease prevention.

In my belief we have not been sufficiently self critical of our conceptual frameworks, measurement or intervention methods. We seem to be repeating our mistakes. Accordingly I have advocated for substantial incremental innovation in all aspects of intervention design, delivery, measurement and evaluation. Colleagues outside the USA have conducted important work in many of these areas. There needs to be more sharing and collaboration across national borders. The final chapters in this book haven’t been conceived, no less written. Lots of opportunities for high quality research.

US citizen. Currently professor of pediatrics and leader of the behavioral nutrition group in the USDA supported children’s nutrition research centre in the Department of Pediatrics in the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Principal investigator on seven externally funded research grants; collaborator on six other grants; and mentor to seven junior scientists. Am particularly interested in designing video games to promote dietary and physical activity behaviour change; and to incorporate biological variables into models predicting children’s and adolescent diet and physical activity. Association founding member.

tbaranow@bcm.tmc.edu

 


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