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Explores the background to the launch of a new qualification in public health nutrition ‐ Registered Public Health Nutritionist (RPHNutr) ‐ in the UK. This new qualification was led by the Nutrition Society and aims to set professional standards, promote the recognition of the need for such expertise, promote the role, create links with other relevant bodies, and provide a publicly available register of qualified people. Defines the role of public health nutritionist and outlines the requirements for accreditation.

Burdened by undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and overweight and obesity as a consequence of both internal conflict and the global nutrition transition, Iraq is in need of adequate public health nutrition education to mitigate nutrition-related outcomes and risks. To address nutrition-related health outcomes, trained nutrition professionals are warranted. This paper examines current nutrition-affiliated programs offered across post-secondary institutions in Iraq.

An electronic review of universities and colleges’ websites, department webpages and academic programs’ homepages and resources of all the private and public universities in Iraq was conducted to find programs related to nutrition, nutrition sciences and dietetics.

All identified programs belonged to the governmental sector, were administered and financed by the Iraqi Government and were under the purview of the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. The review highlighted a predominant focus on food sciences in agricultural departments rather than public health or clinical nutrition. Advanced education in topics such as human metabolism, medical nutrition therapy and public health nutrition are required to adequately address over- and undernutrition in Iraq.

The current state of public health and nutrition-related postsecondary education in Iraq warrants an increased emphasis on clinical and public health nutrition education. Despite a commendable focus on food science studies, the country’s ongoing challenges with obesity, nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases and conflict-associated food insecurity signal an urgent need for balancing this focus with grounding in postsecondary training in public health nutrition.

The aim of this paper is to highlight the significance of integrated governance in bringing about community participation, improved service delivery, accountability of public systems and human resource rationalisation. It discusses the strategies of innovative institutional structures in translating such integration in the areas of public health and nutrition for poor communities.

The paper draws on experience of initiating integrated governance through innovations in health and nutrition programming in the resource‐poor state of Chhattisgarh, India, at different levels of governance structures – hamlets, villages, clusters, blocks, districts and at the state. The study uses mixed methods – i.e. document analysis, interviews, discussions and quantitative data from facilities surveys – to present a case study analyzing the process and outcome of integration.

The data indicate that integrated governance initiatives improved convergence between health and nutrition departments of the state at all levels. Also, innovative structures are important to implement the idea of integration, especially in contexts that do not have historical experience of such partnerships. Integration also contributed towards improved participation of communities in self‐governance, community monitoring of government programs, and therefore, better services.

As governments across the world, especially in developing countries, struggle towards achieving better governance, integration can serve as a desirable process to address this. Integration can affect the decentralisation of power, inclusion, efficiency, accountability and improved service quality in government programs. The institutional structures detailed in this paper can provide models for replication in other similar contexts for translating and sustaining the idea of integrated governance.

This paper is one of the few to investigate innovative public institutions of a particularly vulnerable and poor region in India, and is unique in that it uses the lenses of governance and community mobilisation to explore this important, and under‐researched, topic.

There are insufficient health and nutrition education interventions targeting adolescent females in rural contexts in Indonesia. There is also a paucity of research evaluating the impact of implemented programs. This paper aims to develop and test the validity of a tailored education module to improve the knowledge, attitude and skills of adolescent females on health and nutrition.

The study was conducted between 2019 and 2023 in Ban Village, Karangasem Regency. This study used an explanatory sequential mixed methods research approach consisting of three stages: formative research using mixed methods, validation and review of the module by experts using the Delphi technique and pilot testing of the module. In the formative research stage, there were 40 female adolescent respondents implicated, in the validation and module review stage, there were 14 nutrition and public health experts implicated, and in the pilot test, a new cohort of 60 female adolescents were recruited. Validity was assessed by exploring the feasibility, reliability and linguistics of the module. The Delphi score was measured by the mean score and standard deviation.

The Health and Balanced Nutrition Education Module was impactful in improving the health and nutrition of female adolescents in Ban Village. The validation score of the module shows that from the total score of 4, construct reliability obtained a score of 3.18 with a 0.35 standard deviation. The construct feasibility and language revealed better scores, which were 3.31 with 0.4 standard deviations and 3.29 with 0.46 standard deviations, respectively. After dissemination of the module, participants’ mean score of knowledge on the importance of balanced nutrition significantly improved by 68.8% (p-value = 0.0001).

The Health and Balance Nutrition Education Module has been proven to improve the awareness of adolescents on balanced nutrition. Nevertheless, this study also has limitations due to the small number of respondents attending the information sessions and the pilot testing. Further studies should consider using implementation research for scale-up in other parts of Bali.

This study provides insight for health and nutrition educators for creating modules that better align with the context and information needs of the target group particularly for adolescents in rural areas, which are seldom neglected.

This study indicates that the trialed education materials can play a role in improving female adolescents’ knowledge of nutrition throughout their life cycle and their role in preventing stunting and noncommunicable diseases in later adult life.

The health and nutrition module trialed in the study is tailored specifically to the context of rural areas of Bali and validated by public health experts, then tested with 60 adolescents.

This study aims to investigate whether nutrition knowledge impacts on the credibility and purchase behaviour of foodstuffs that make health claims.

The UCD Food and Health Survey is a monthly online survey, which began in November 2008. In March 2009, participants were asked a series of questions pertaining to nutrition and health claims and 665 completed questionnaires were included for analysis. Participants' level of nutrition knowledge was measured using a combined and modified version of Parmenter and Wardle's General Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire (1999) and that of Hawkes and Nowak (1998). Perceived credibility was gauged using a semantic differential scale and the questionnaire was designed to also assess participants' purchasing behaviour of functional foods.

Females scored significantly higher than males for nutrition knowledge (p=0.004) but there was no significant difference in nutrition knowledge between age groups. “Reduces feelings of hunger” was deemed the most credible claim. With the exception of “This yogurt drink will strengthen your bones and teeth”, there was no difference in credibility between high and low nutrition knowledge groups. Health claims were more credible to participants when found on yogurt and breakfast cereal when compared with pasta and chocolate. Products claiming to reduce cholesterol were purchased more in the previous month than any of the other products and the same product was purchased statistically more often by those participants in the older age group.

A limitation of this study was that the panel were younger and more formally educated than the general public. They were also more likely to be female. The gender bias may be because the survey was food and health‐based and therefore may not have appealed to men as a more generally themed survey might have done. The results of this study should be considered therefore with this limitation in mind.

People do not consider products with health claims to be a uniform category of foodstuffs and participants' level of nutrition knowledge does not have a significant impact on their behaviour towards products carrying health claims.

Knowledge of nutrition does not impact on people's reactions to products with health claims and different foods demonstrate different levels of credibility as carriers for health claims.

With the global community increasingly dependent on the food industry for the supply of one of the most basic of human needs, there is an imperative to consider how it can contribute to improving public nutrition into the future. This paper aims to present some ways that food companies can review policy and practice to meet this responsibility in the 21st century.

Based on a review of relevant literature published between the 1980s through to 2010, changing attitudes and practices in the food manufacturing sector are outlined. These are analysed in the light of coinciding trends in consumer expectations and behaviour, and the development of new technologies for food production and information transfer.

Widespread concern about the environment, increasing technological innovation, growing knowledge of diet‐health relationships and changing patterns of diet‐related disease risks are redefining responsibilities across the food industry. Food companies have been criticised for some negative effects on health, in particular, for contributing to obesogenic environments in many countries. Collaborating with all stakeholders will determine the way for the manufacturing sector to make positive contributions to public nutrition in the future.

This paper contributes to the discourse necessary to identify the emerging responsibilities, set targets, develop strategies and share the tasks to be undertaken in working towards building a health protective food supply.

Purpose: Evidence of adverse health effects of artificial trans fatty acids (TFAs) have accumulated since 1990s, yet TFAs are widely used by several food manufacturers around the world. This review aimed to: ascertain the available evidence of the known unfavourable biochemical properties of artificial TFAs, their metabolic functions and health consequences; estimate their average intake levels and trends in different countries in order to critically evaluate whether more action is required to eliminate them from the diet. Methodology: The published evidence was searched by employing: Medline, Pubmed, InterScience, BioMed Central and Annual Reviews. Findings: With reference to human health, evidences from epidemiological, retrospective and observational studies revealed that the consumption of TFAs could outweigh the health risks posed by saturated fat consumption. The main health concerns included unfavourably altered blood cholesterol concentrations, insulin resistance, foetal brain and neural disturbances, proinflammatory and carcinogenic responses. Great variation exists in the global trends of industrial TFAs intake, being low in Mediterranean region, Japan and Scandinavia and high in parts of United States of America and Iceland. Besides the intense use of TFAs by food manufacturers and in eateries, the use of TFAs in food products is often poorly regulated and ill‐informed to consumers. Value: Since competitive alternatives to TFAs have made them non‐mandatory a broad public health intervention at government level to regulate or completely eliminate them from the national diet is warranted.

The purpose of this paper is to present the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (ANI) as a case to delineate contextual and often paradoxical challenges in implementing centrally sponsored schemes in a small island economy. Government reports cite ANI's record on health outcomes to be impressive when comparing it with other Union Territories (UTs). However, using examples of two public health and nutrition schemes, the paper argues that unless ANI's development indicators are compared over few years, public policy may fail to identity its development challenges and continue its rhetoric while in reality, health outcomes may be regressing.

The paper used case study research design involving mixed method approach. Quantitative data were secondary in nature, collected from local government departments. Two of the three districts of ANI formed the sample of the study. Main tools used for qualitative analysis were observation and informal interviews with government functionaries and other stakeholders.

The findings point to the paradox of superior public spending and infrastructure in ANI in midst of deteriorating public health and child nutrition outcomes. The paper concluded that any policy making on island's trajectory of development is not only incomplete, but also faulty unless its special context is considered as a starting point.

Ethnographic studies on the health-seeking behaviour of ANI communities can reveal trends in access to health services and its reasons, but that was beyond the scope of the paper.

The paper is arguably the first to identify development paradoxes in implementation of government health and nutrition programmes in ANI. The paper poses further questions on unpacking the paradox of development in the islands. It urges policy makers and administrators to reconsider the efficacy of centrally sponsored schemes that are implemented without being contextualised for a small island economy like ANI.

Explains that current public health policy puts so much emphasis on food and nutrition because the single largest cause of death is nutrition‐related, and also because it is easier for a government to promote public health through nutrition than to address ailing health infrastructures or get to grips with adult literacy. Reports, however, the gaps in health equality between different socio‐economic and ethnic groups, and across gender and age. Discusses cultural expectations of a meal and the ideal body. Infers that the higher educational level a person has, the more likely they are to be thin and to occupy a higher place in a hierarchical social structure. Suggests that more food is consumed as snacks – a triumph for mass production, marketing and advertising. Defines what is meant and understood by diet, and evaluates good and bad food. Focuses briefly on traditional food exchanges in Western Samoa and on the use of olive oil in the traditional Mediterranean diet. Indicates that choice of food may be a result of production processes rather than consumer pressure. Explores also the social and cultural interactions of meal times and the role women’s emancipation has played in changing household food and meals. Points out that the lowest socioeconomic groups favour informal takeaways, while the highest socioeconomic groups prefer formal meals out, and, therefore, that the distribution of health and illness is shaped by cultural, social, economic and political forces.