Topic 1. Food, physical activity and health: from research to recommendations

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In the field of nutrition, France and most industrialized countries are face with major public health challenges. Of course, the difference between dietary intake and the body’s real requirements cannot be considered a direct cause of the large majority of chronic diseases. However, the diet, physical activity and the resulting nutritional status determine, directly and indirectly, the health status of populations. Chronic diseases linked to nutrition (cancers, cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, obesity, type 2 diabetes, etc.) have a significant impact in terms of public health, at human, social and economic levels.These chronic diseases are described as multifactorial, since biological, physiological and genetic, as well as many environmental factors, contribute to their onset, development or clinical expression. Among these factors, food and physical activity are now considered to be major contributors which can be modulated through public health interventions to promote prevention.Over the past 30 years, many scientific studies – performed on cell models, organs, animals, patients or healthy people, as well as in wider populations – showed, with different degrees of certainty, that nutritional factors (excess or deficiency) contribute to many chronic diseases. These studies not only concern food in general, but also identify precise food groups, – and micronutrients and non-nutrients – as well as physical activity. Even though, in many cases the evidence available does not (yet) allow us to confirm the link between the suspect nutritional factor and some diseases, in other cases the convergence of the evidence has led to an international consensus and recommendations.Given the nutrition-related public health stakes, and taking into account the opinion of many scientific experts, with the support of all the ministries and institutions concerned, the French Ministry of Health implemented, the French Nutrition and Health Programme (PNNS) in 2001. The general objective of this programme is to enhance the population’s health status by acting on the major contributing factor: nutrition.