Public health nutrition, as a field of research and practice, is rich in diversity and intimidating by the enormity of its challenges. Reflecting this view, it would be difficult to argue that research published in Public Health Nutrition is narrow in focus and limited in diversity of topic. The dozen research contributions in this issue provide contrary evidence to this position. Diversity is evident in terms of geographical origin of papers, topic under investigation and research methods applied.
Dietary adequacy is a central theme in public health nutrition worldwide and addressed in a number of papers in this issue. The nutrition transition in developing economies around the world demonstrates that dietary adequacy can swing from deficit to surplus within a relatively short time. Vio et al. (Reference Vio, Albala and Kain1) report on an analysis of the nutritional status component of the nutrition transition in Chile in relation to evolving obesity rates. They conclude that this transition towards obesity requires comprehensive and effective interventions. Rambeloson et al. (Reference Rambeloson, Darmon and Ferguson2) have assessed the nutritional quality of food aid delivered by food banks in France, using linear programming analysis in order to identify practical modifications for improvement. This analysis identified that French food bank-delivered food aid did not achieve French recommendations for a range of nutrients, which is of obvious concern given the already at-risk status of the target populations for this food aid.
Abebe et al. (Reference Abebe, Bogale, Hambridge, Stoeker, Arbide, Teshome, Krebs, Westcott, Bailey and Gibson3) report on the very high prevalence of Zn inadequacy in a cross-sectional study of subsistence farming households in southern Ethiopia. In contrast, Kuhnlein et al. (Reference Kuhnlein, Receveur, Soueida and Berti4) report on the first comprehensive dietary adequacy assessment of adult Artic indigenous people. This study indicates unique patterns of dietary adequacy amongst different Artic indigenous peoples. Assis et al. (Reference Assis, Barreto and de Oliviera5) investigate the scourge of malnutrition among preschoolers in north-eastern Brazil, and conclude that adverse social and economic factors interact with family environmental factors that lead to a high prevalence of mild–moderate malnutrition.
Evaluation is a central theme in public health nutrition practice and critical to the evolving and improving nature of work in this field. Laroche et al. (Reference Laroche, Davis, Forman, Palmisano and Heisler6) qualitatively evaluate the impact of an adult-focused diabetes intervention on participants’ food provision for their children and the children’s reaction to these associated changes. This evaluation guides interventions that assist parents in successfully including children in their dietary changes. Pietinen et al. (Reference Pietinen, Valsta, Hirvonen and Sinkko7) estimate the impact of choosing food products labelled as either low or high in salt on salt intake in the Finnish adult population. This formative evaluation suggests that the potential impact of labelling and giving consumers the possibility to chose products with less salt are of public health importance.
