The New Nutrition Science project

Abstract

The New Nutrition Science project is the result of confluent thinking, especially within the past 10 years. It is a joint Initiative of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences and the World Health Policy Forum. It gives nutrition science, with its expression in food and nutrition policy, a new conceptual framework, a new definition, three dimensions and extended principles. The objective of the New Nutrition Science project is to enable nutrition science to gain all possible relevance in the circumstances of the twenty-first century. It remains work in progress. As expressed in the Giessen Declaration, the result of a workshop meeting held at the University of Giessen, the three dimensions of the new nutrition science are biological, social and environmental. Its concerns are personal, population, and planetary health and welfare. The broad conceptual framework of the New Nutrition Science project looks forward, and also marks a return to the days when nut rition science, and its predecessor discipline dietetics, had most salutary impact on public health. It takes into account the most pressing concerns that face us now, including a continued rising human population, the persistence of malnutrition, the rise of obesity and diabetes in early life, increased inequality within and between nations and populations, rapid changes in global and local food supplies, and the diminution and draining of natural resources. It is only by combining biological, social and environmental approaches that nutrition science can fulfil its potential to preserve, maintain, develop and sustain life on earth. Keywords: conceptual framework of nutrition; definition of nutrition; dimensions of nutrition; Giessen Declaration; principles of nutrition; three-dimensional nutrition science