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Taskforces
During the March 2002 IUNS Council meeting in Osaka, Japan, the Council
reviewed the IUNS committees and task forces to determine those that had
completed their charge, had not functioned effectively and were active and
productive. The review resulted in discontinuing committees, and continuing task
forces that had active agendas yet to accomplish. Some new task forces were
established to meet a specific need and will function in liaison with the IUNS
officers.
Due to financial constraints, much of the work of the task forces is expected
to be carried out through correspondence, using electronic media where possible.
Several task forces will organize successful free-standing workshops or meetings
in conjunction with other large international gatherings. In addition to
encouraging publication of meeting reports in professional journals, IUNS
expects to make the reports available though its website.
The Council discussed and agreed on the
following guidelines for the eligibility and ranking of IUNS and Committee of
Task Force (CTF):
1)
A CTF must have an effective team leader.
2)
"Terms of Reference" for a CTF will be formulated jointly by Council and
the CTF Chair.
3)
Clear objectives will be stated.
4)
The problem to be addressed should have global or regional relevance.
5)
There is international representation on the Task Force.
6)
A Task Force should produce timely reports that are posted on the web,
including the IUNS web site, in addition to other methods of dissemination.
7)
Task Forces should be outcome-oriented. Outcomes might include various
scholarly activities, research initiatives, reports and regional or cross
regional meetings. Particular efforts to create Afro-Asian-Latin American
linkages and perspectives are encouraged.
8)
CTF's should endeavor to contribute to Capacity Building through the
involvement and training of young investigators.
The Council agreed to establish the following Task Forces:
Diet, Nutrition and Long-Term Health
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Charge:
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To consider, in a cohesive fashion, how
nutrition from conception, through childhood and adolescence to adulthood
and the reproductive years and into later life can enhance health and well
being. |
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To take account of the work of other IUNS
task forces, notably those to do with Nutrition in Transition and
Nutritional Resistance to Infection. |
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Chairperson:
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Dr. Noel Solomons
Scientific Director
Center for Studies of Sensory Impairment, Aging and Metabolism (CeSSIAM)
P.O. Box 02-5339
Section 3163
Miami, FL 33102-5339 USA
E-mail:
cessiam@guate.net.gt
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Traditional, Indigenous and Cultural Food and Nutrition
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Charge:
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To review and inform, as comprehensively
as possible, indigenous food systems |
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To represent the nutritional advantages
and/or disadvantages of the systems |
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To engage indigenous peoples in the
scientific work of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences. |
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Chairperson:
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Dr. Harriet V. Kuhnlein
Professor of Human Nutrition
Founding Director, Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment
(CINE)
McGill University, Macdonald Campus
21,111 Lakeshore
Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Quebec, Canada H9X3V9
E-mail:
harriet.kuhnlein@mcgill.ca
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Nutrition Security and Rural -Urban transition
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Charge:
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To further the work of the existing Task
Force. |
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To support the Task Force's plan to
conduct a multi country study in conjunction with WHO. |
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Chairperson:
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Osman Galal
UCLA School of Public Health Department of Community Health Sciences
Box 951772
Center for Health Sciences 36-081
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772 U.S.A.
E-mail:ogalal@ucla.edu
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INFOODS - Food Biodiversity
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Charge:
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To further and increase the momentum
of the previous IUNS committee on "INFOODS", the International Food
Nomenclature and Compositional Committee. |
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Chairperson:
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Ruth Charrondiere, PhD
Nutrition Officer
FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla
00153 Roma, Italy
Telephone: +39 06 570 56 134
Fax: +39 06 570 54593
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Eco-Nutrition
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Charge:
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| The linkage of the food, nutrition and
environmental sciences, to address questions of sustainability and food
security. |
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Chairperson:
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Dr. Richard Deckelbaum
Director
Institute of Human Nutrition
PH 15-1512E
Columbia University
630 West 168th Street
New York, NY 10032
E-mail:
rjd20@columbia.edu |
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Charge:
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| To examine the opportunities for
information technology, food technology, biotechnology, and nuclear
technology (for new crops), alongside traditional technologies to enhance
human nutrition and health. |
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Chairperson:
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Dr. V. Prakash
Director
Central Food Technological Research Institute
Mysore 570 020, India
Email: director@cftri.com or
prakash@cftri.com
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Charge:
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To provide a nutrition science counterpart to
evidence-based medicine (EBM) and underpin nutrition policy. |
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Chairperson:
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Dr.
Jim Mann
Department of Human Nutrition
University of Otago
Room G22, Union Court
E-mail:
jim.mann@stonebow.otago.ac.nz |
Redefining Food Quality
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Charge:
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To define a process for developing internationally useful, adaptable Dietary Quality (DQ) Indicators. These indicators must be useful for action.
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To use food balance or other information to evaluate DQ based on an appropriate range of intake of specific foods.
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To identify ways in which DQ could be improved in various environments, including agricultural and food processing and preservation strategies, with emphasis on the importance of having access to locally available quality foods, and traditional foods. Other approaches would include nutrition education, and novel strategies.
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Importantly, to obtain evidence-based data that increasing dietary quality is feasible, and effective.
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To identify ways to introduce the concept of DQ into the goals of national and international agencies, governments, and other relevant organizations.
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Report 2009:
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Introduction
This Task Force worked initially on the development of a system that would enable organizations and countries to score Dietary Quality. More recently the focus has shifted to Nutrient Profiling, to be expanded in a joint project with WHO. This should include the development of a DQ scoring system, so both activities of this Task Force will be combined.
Dietary Quality Indicators.
In this context, dietary quality considers both the positive and negative components of a diet in terms of its effect on human health and function. There is an urgent need to focus attention on the importance of Dietary Quality, in the context of the current global epidemic of chronic disease and unhealthy body weight (from stunting to overweight), and widespread micronutrient deficiencies. The fundamental cause of both micronutrient deficiencies, and overweight and chronic disease, is poor dietary quality, with the risk of overweight exacerbated by low physical activity. However, few policy makers are taking seriously the urgency of the need to improve the quality of the food supply, whether their responsibility is nutrition, agriculture, or public health.
Many characteristics of modern diets are not conducive to long-term human health e.g. levels of consumption of cereals and fats (especially refined cereals and trans fats), refined sugars (especially high fructose corn syrup), alcohol, salt, and excessive intakes of saturated fats from dairy products. Simultaneously with the trend to higher intakes of these foods world-wide, there has been a decline in intake of legumes, and in many groups, of fruits and vegetables. To a large extent, the international nutrition community has attempted to improve the widespread prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies through supplementation programs (most of which have had limited success) or fortification of staple cereals and condiments.
In order to study, evaluate and improve dietary quality (DQ), we need to review or develop DQ indicators using a system that is universally applicable and useful for this purpose. An index of DQ might encompass the following features.
1) A macronutrient composition and energy density consistent with reducing risk of diet related chronic disease;
2) a micronutrient composition and density consistent with minimizing risk of micronutrient deficiencies;
3) adequate intakes of bioactive food components that are now recognized as important for chronic disease prevention (e.g. phytonutrients);
4) foods that are acceptable in terms of culture, taste, ecological burden, and local agricultural practices.
Specific goals:
• To define a process for developing internationally useful, adaptable DQ Indicators (e.g. identify patterns or foods within a country or region that are consistent with best health outcomes). These indicators must be useful for action. (May have multiple outcomes).
• To use food balance or other information to evaluate DQ based on an appropriate range of intake of specific foods (e.g. need to increase or reduce animal source food intake, or increase fruit/vegetable and legume intake, by specific groups).
• To identify ways in which DQ could be improved in various environments, including agricultural and food processing and preservation strategies, with emphasis on the importance of having access to locally available quality foods, and traditional foods. Other approaches would include nutrition education, and novel strategies.
• Importantly, to obtain evidence-based data that increasing dietary quality is feasible, and effective.
• To identify ways to introduce the concept of DQ into the goals of national and international agencies, governments, and other relevant organizations.
Progress
Progress to date on developing a system for DQ evaluation has been sporadic. A small workshop was organized by Task Force members at the Asian Congress of Nutrition in Taipei, which identified Popkin’s International Dietary Quality Index as a model for further development and testing using existing dietary data. A similar meeting was held at the Experimental Biology meeting in San Diego, 2008. We have a fairly clear idea of how to proceed with this challenge but it is likely that the DQ index activity will be combined with a new Nutrition Profiling focus (see below). The two activities are related because creation of a nutritional quality index is part of many of the nutrition profile models that have been put forward, and will be helpful in validating the various models.
Nutrition Profilling
The President of IUNS requested some time ago that this committee pay attention to the issue of Nutrient Profiling. However, we were aware that a large number of individuals, organizations and countries/regions were developing different systems for labeling or scoring foods on the basis of their nutrient content and healthful qualities. The primary goal of most such systems is to label foods that enable the consumer to quickly identify healthy options at the point of purchase, and to assist food companies to improve the quality of their products.
It has been difficult to see how the IUNS could take leadership of yet another system for Nutrient Profiling, so instead we have taken two different but linked directions.
The first is that we collaborated with Dr. Barry Popkin and others in the programming of a symposium on Nutrient Profiling at the ICN. The issues to be are addressed are as follows. We recognize that there is a great deal of concern about the profusion of country and industry labeling systems and the lack of comprehension of current detailed food labeling. In addition, nutrient profiling models need to be evaluated in a range of countries and contexts. A great deal of research has occurred in selected countries and will be presented. Case studies of completed front-of-pack labels will be presented as examples. IUNS is mostly responsible for the last part of this symposium which will take a broader overview of the participation of the food industry, and the nutritional issues underlying profiling.
The second direction derives from the fact that we learned that WHO is also planning a Consultation on Nutrient Profiling, because they have many of the same concerns that IUNS does. With Dr. Francesco Branca of WHO, IUNS has agreed to collaborate in this Consultation, and to develop future possible roles for Adhering Bodies and nutrition societies in general, in validating, harmonizing and translating the nutrient profiling systems. More details of this collaborative activity will be discussed at an IUNS-WHO meeting at the ICN in Bangkok. Dr. Branca is also making a presentation of the WHO proposal in our ICN session.
Topics and speakers are as follows.
Front of the package labeling: concepts, research, and country case studies.
Chairs: Prof. Barry Popkin, Director, Nutritional Epidemiology Division and UNC Interdisciplinary Obesity Center, University of North Carolina, USA, and Prof. Lindsay Allen, Director, USDA, ARS Western Human Nutrition Research Center, University of California, Davis, USA.
Topics and Speakers:
• Brief overview on current and future challenges. Dr. Barry Popkin, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
• Concepts behind nutrient profiling. Dr. Michael Rayner, Director, Health Promotion Research Group, British Heart Foundation.
• Research on Front of Package impact: Prof. Jaap Seidell, Director, Institute of Health Sciences, Wageningen University..
• Mexico Case Study: Dr. Simón Barquera, Head, Department of Nutrition and Chronic Disease, Institute of Nutrition and Public Health, Cuernavaca, Mexico.
The Future of Nutrition Profiling and the Roles of the IUNS and WHO
Chairs: Prof. Lindsay Allen, Director, USDA, ARS Western Human Nutrition Research Center, University of California, Davis, USA, and Dr. Francesco Branca, Director, Nutrition for Health and Development, WHO.
Topics and Speakers:
• The global food industry perspective: Richard Black, Senior Vice President for Nutrition, Kraft Foods Inc., Northfield, USA.
• WHO’s perspective. Dr. Francesco Branca, Director, and Dr. Chizuru Nishida, Nutrition for Health and Development, World Health Organization, Geneva.
• Implications for nutritionists and the IUNS: Prof. Lindsay Allen, and Dr. Suzanne Murphy, Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, USA.
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Chairperson:
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Dr. Lindsay H. Allen
Department of Nutrition
Meyer Hall
University of California
Davis, CA 95616 USA
E-mail: lhallen@ucdavis.edu |
Gene-Nutrient Interactions: Knowledge to action
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Chairperson:
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Van Ommen |
Harmonizing nutrient-based guidelines
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Chairperson:
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Ibrahim Elmadfa
Institute of Nutritional Sciences
University of Vienna
Althanstrasse 14 (Pharmaziezentrum)
A-1090 Vienna
Austria
Tel: 43-1-4277-54901
Fax: 43-1-4277-9549
E-mail: ibrahim.elmadfa@univie.ac.at
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Capacity Development and Leadership in Nutrition
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Chairperson:
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Ibrahim Elmadfa,
Emorn Wasantwisut,
Anna Lartey,
Ricardo Uauy
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