A new approach to nutrition science is needed to address current food systems challenges

An informative and timely new editorial has been published in Nutrition & Dietetics (February 2025). The editorial is titled “A new approach to nutrition science is needed to address current food systems challenges” (Machado, 2025). Here, the author notes that:

“Promoting healthy and sustainable food systems for current and future generations is central in realising United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.¹ There is expert consensus on the urgent need to address current unhealthy, unsustainable and unequitable food systems, as evidenced by over 100 global reports.⁴⁴ Such action is also the first of six ‘pillars of action’ in the United Nations’ Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016–2025).¹ Yet progress towards achieving this agenda has been slow. Current predominant nutrient-centric and biomedical paradigms underpinning nutrition science research, policy and practice no longer can address the complexity of contemporary food and nutrition challenges.^45, 46 Responding to intertwined health, sustainability and equity issues requires a novel approach to nutrition science^47–49 that: (i) acknowledges the shift in modern nutrition science from a reductionist approach to a holistic one, addressing the complexities that arise as nutrition exposures move from nutrients to foods to dietary patterns, within the ‘Food System Sustainability’ era. This also means that new methods are required to generate, synthesize and evaluate the body of nutrition evidence; (ii) considers power asymmetries in food systems and the role of UPFs in driving nutrition transition globally; and finally, (iii) integrates biological, environmental and social sciences, and culture- and context-specific, non-formal knowledge, including Indigenous knowledge.”

You can access the full editorial published in Nutrition & Dietetics at:

A new approach to nutrition science is needed to address current food systems challenges (2025)

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1747-0080.12923

Reference

Machado P. A new approach to nutrition science is needed to address current food systems challenges (2025). Nutrition & Dietetics. 2025;82(1): https://doi.org/10.1111/1747-0080.12923