The Giessen Declaration

Now is the time for the science of nutrition, with its application in food and nutrition policy, to be given a broader definition, additional dimensions and relevant principles, to meet the challenges and opportunities faced by humankind in the twenty-first century. As originally conceived and as now usually studied and practised, nutrition is principally a biological science. This classic biological dimension of nutrition science is and will remain central. Descriptively it is concerned with the interactions of food and nutrition with physiologic, metabolic and now also genomic systems, and the effects of these interactions with health and disease. Prescriptively it deals with the nutritional control and prevention of disease and the improvement of health in humans, at all levels from individuals to populations; and also with animals and plants usually as human resources. Those now concerned with the future of the world at all levels, from local to global, generally agree that their overriding shared priority is to protect human, living and physical resources all together, in order to enable the long-term sustenance of life on Earth and the happiness of humankind. Nutrition science is one vital means to this end. This implies expansion and enlargement of the science, and its identification as a broad, integrative discipline, enabled to identify and address the circumstances, challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century. The biological dimension should therefore be one of the three dimensions of nutrition science. The other two dimensions are social and environmental.