The principles, definition and dimensions of the new nutrition science.

OBJECTIVE: To specify the principles, definition and dimensions of the new nutrition science. PURPOSE: To identify nutrition, with its application in food and nutrition policy, as a science with great width and breadth of vision and scope, in order that it can fully contribute to the preservation, maintenance, development and sustenance of life on Earth. METHOD: A brief overview shows that current conventional nutrition is defined as a biological science, although its governing and guiding principles are implicit only, and no generally agreed definition is evident. Following are agreements on the principles, definition and dimensions of the new nutrition science, made by the authors as participants at a workshop on this theme held on 5-8 April 2005 at the Schloss Rauischholzhausen, Justus-Liebig University, Giessen, Germany. RESULT: Nutrition science as here specified will retain its current 'classical' identity as a biological science, within a broader and integrated conceptual framework, and will also be confirmed as a social and environmental science. As such it will be concerned with personal and population health, and with planetary health--the welfare and future of the whole physical and living world of which humans are a part.

Mixed diet in Europe. A historical overview.

AIMS: Successful health promotion in Europe depends on an adequate knowledge of everyday nutrition. An analysis of consumption structures and eating patterns is therefore a basic scientific task. This paper has two main aims: on the one hand it gives empirical data on European food consumption during the last 50 years. On the other hand it stresses the scientific problems of constructing and reflecting a 'diet' or 'everyday nutrition'. METHODS: The paper starts with a discussion on the different levels of a 'diet' and gives some hints for an adequate analysis of an eating culture. Empirical data is presented, first of all consumption figures, then information on single 'national' dishes and last on meals in the former European Economic Community. RESULTS/CONCLUSION: The empirical analysis shows the complex structure of European eating culture. Health promotion cannot be founded on simple consumption figures, because they do not reflect everyday nutrition in an adequate way. A successful policy needs to be founded on a detailed knowledge of dishes, meals and symbols of eating; and it has to reflect the problems of one-sided awareness of nutritionists and doctors.