Nutrition and nutritional diseases.
This chapter will comprise to a major extent brief references to considerations of importance to many of these agencies and if it leads to a better understanding of the policies of some of these groups and the assistance available from them, it will have served its purpose.
Abstract
Frequently the expanse of a subject a,ea is obscured through preoccupa tion with small, rapidly growing buildings "Which may obstruct one's out look. So it is with that area of medicine known as nutrition. The breadth of the subject and the potentialities for application of our knowledge for the betterment of man's health throughout the world remain in striking contrast to the condition of man and understanding of health improvement attain able by the application of existing scientific information. He who attempts to apply knowledge gleaned in the laboratory and medical centers often meets frustration because of the gross ignorance of practical techniques for coping with the human prejudices, attitudes, superstitions, convictions, and tradi tions in which food-its production, use, and consumption-is bathed. These qualities plague the physician regardless of whether he is advising an indi vidual patient or is concerned with influencing the nutritional policy of a nation. Of inestimable value, therefore, is the exchange and dissemination of summary knowledge and techniques afforded by numerous official and quasi official agencies, national and international. The media of exchange of such agencies are ofttimes less widely available than the usual medical journals. Accordingly, this chapter will comprise to a major extent brief references to considerations of importance to many of these agencies. If it leads to a better understanding of the policies of some of these groups and the assistance available from them, it will have served its purpose. The broadest responsibilities in nutrition are shared by the two United Nations' specialized agencies-Food and Agriculture Organization (FAa) (1) and the World Health Organization (WHO) (2 to 7). In the field of nutrition the former (8) is concerned with advising on the production, processing, and distribution of food, and the latter with the medical problems which arise from food or deficiencies of it. The activities of the two agencies are well depicted in the reports (9, 10, 11) of the FAO/WHO Joint Expert Committee on Nutrition. The latest report of this Committee (12) highlights the con siderations of protein malnutrition and the feeding of infants and children, of educational and training needs in nutrition, of the diseases pellagra and endemic goiter, of fortification of dry skim milk with vitamins A and D, of the assessment of nutritional status (including anthropometry), of the rela tionship of nutrition to degenerative diseases, and of food additives,