The 5th international conference of the Joint Programming Initiative 'A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life' took place on February 20, 2019 in Brussels and welcomed about 240 people to debate on our conference theme Diet as leverage point towards a healthy and sustainable food system. The participants represented a wide variety of stakeholders in the area of food, nutrition and health and came together to discuss the state of the art in the field of JPI HDHL and look towards the future.
The battle against unhealthy lifestyles is interconnected with other societal challenges, in particular the effect of food production and consumption on biodiversity and climate change, and vice versa. The future-proofing of our food system is a huge challenge and the subject of much ongoing debate. JPI HDHL adheres to the viewpoint that diet is one of the main leverage points towards a healthy & future proof food system. But despite the importance of nutrition in the food system, the research area that deals with the links between nutrition and health as well nutrition related public health interventions often falls in between the agricultural and health domain with a risk of underinvestment – whereas knowledge is needed to underpin policy & interventions to work towards a healthy sustainable society.
During the 5th JPI HDHL conference, these were some of the questions we explored. With a panel of experts we also discussed why nutrition is relatively underfunded and how this may be improved, and how to better connect policy needs and R&I. Furthermore, we took stock of what the JPI HDHL has been working on and topics like impact of research projects and consumer behavior were addressed in workshops and inspiration sessions (Final Programme).
More information about all the keynote speeches and sessions is available in the conference report.
Presentations that were given at the conference are available here.
As part of the JPI HDHL conference, a science vlog (video log) contest for early career scientists was organised. From 14 running projects funded by JPI HDHL, we received a vlog made by one or more early career scientists.The best 3 vlogs selected by a review panel were shown during the conference and the audience could vote to select the winning one. The vlog of the GUTMOM project made by Lea Brix came out as the winner of the contest!
All the vlogs that were entered can be viewed on the JPI HDHL YouTube channel.