Foods for tomorrow: the challenge for nutrition

Diet related diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, osteoporosis, and degenerative changes of ageing are a major cause of morbidity and mortality throughout Europe. There is considerable potential to improve public health by means of diet. This includes changing eating behaviour at the population level, through the development and implementation of nutrition policy and promulgation of dietary guidelines for healthy eating. This must be complemented by measures which modify the nature of the food supply. Europe's food industry has a central role in facilitating dietary change by providing health promoting foods, including novel and functional foods, which are safe, convenient, palatable and acceptable to consumers. The development of policies, programmes and products for improving public health will need to be informed by innovative research which strengthens our fundamental understanding of the relationships between food and physiological functions related to health, as well as of factors which influence food choice and eating behaviour. This is a considerable challenge for nutrition and will require the organisation of research to provide for the integration of appropriate disciplines and expertise, including recent advances achieved in molecular and cell biology and in the analysis of the human genome.