UK food policy: implications for nutritionists

Area of Science:

• Public Health Nutrition
• Environmental Nutrition
• Social Nutrition

Background:

• Global food systems are under critical stress, with a persistent gap between evidence and policy change.
• Policy makers have been slow to recognize the significance of global changes impacting food and nutrition.
• Three major UN conferences in 2021 presented opportunities to address future food system changes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To consider the implications of a changing world for nutrition and nutritionists.
• To propose multi-criteria analysis as an essential methodology for 21st-century nutrition science.
• To suggest reconnecting life science, social, and environmental nutrition traditions for new paradigm formation.

Main Methods:

• Review of the current state of global food system stress and policy.
• Proposal of multi-criteria analysis integrating social and environmental criteria into nutrition studies.
• Recombination of historical nutrition traditions (social, environmental, life sciences).

Main Results:

• Multi-criteria analysis offers a framework for complex policy challenges in nutrition.
• Nutrition science can integrate its diverse traditions to address sustainability and public health.
• Five priorities for influencing science and policy are identified, including sustainable dietary guidelines and consumer engagement.

Conclusions:

• A multi-criteria approach to nutrition science provides new pathways for influencing policy.
• Addressing the transition to ecologically sound public health nutrition is crucial, despite challenges.
• Integrating sustainability, social, and environmental factors is key for future nutrition science and policy.