Efad newsletter december 2014

European

Dietitians

President's Message:

Welcome to our last Newsletter for 2014. I wish you a very joyous and relaxing time during the coming holiday season and Christmas celebration.

I feel incredibly privileged to still be writing to you as EFAD President as I was re-­‐elected during the General Meeting in Athens.

I am delighted to continue to serve the profession in Europe. As I said in my opening to our Annual Report (available on our website www.efad.org) the contribution of dietitians in Europe continues to be recognised and especially so through our conferences, which “highlight the work of dietitians in reducing health inequalities through improving nutrition but also demonstrate the active work of dietitians in contributing to the evidence base for effective outcomes.”

Sharing the work of dietitians in Europe remains one of my highest priorities, so it was a great honour to be invited by the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics to present ‘The Wimpfheimer -­‐ Guggenheim International Lecture: Global Dietetic Alliances – The European Experience’ in Atlanta, Georgia this October. Another EFAD delegate, Daniel Buchholz -­‐ representing the German Dietetic Association (VDD) -­‐ also spoke at the conference, where he described the work that the VDD have been doing to agree a dietetic language and care plan based on the International Classification of Function. Together, our presentations showed an international audience the creativity, impact and contribution that dietitians are making to improve nutritional health in Europe.

As I look through this Newsletter I see another innovation and must welcome our student dietitians as they enthusiastically come together to form a European Network. I hope that our new EFAD Higher Education Associates will support these aspiring dietitians in every way they can. The network already has a momentum of its own including the ‘dietetic song’ premiered at our conference – see our Facebook page!

May 2015 be a happy and productive time for you and of course for European dietitians!

Anne

Anne de Looy, President, EFAD Professor of Dietetics, Plymouth University, England

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Foresight: The Dietitian as Educator, Advisor, Counsellor?

Foresight has been defined as ‘a systematic, participatory, future intelligence gathering and medium to long-­‐term vision-­‐building process aimed at present day decisions. It is not predicting, it is about forward looking’ ( http://forlearn.jrc.ec.europa.eu/index.htm , 2005). The foresight approach involves different people working together to anticipate the future and considers alternative futures that are possible, preferable and probable. Three interesting ‘foresight’ opportunities arose for dietitians in Europe in 2014.

Firstly, EFAD is a member of the Stakeholders Advisory Board for the EC Joint Programming Initiative (JPI): A Health Diet for a Healthy Life and I was invited to a JPI workshop to consider what the future may look like with respect to food and nutrition in Europe and how this should guide our research agenda now. A quote used in the workshop ‘the future depends on what we do in the present’ (Mahatma Gandhi) set the scene well because how we plan now, for research and other activities, will strongly affect our future.

Secondly, we were privileged to have with us at the workshop, members of the EC Joint Research Centre who provided insight on the future research priorities for food and diets. The very recently published report by this group, shown here, will guide future research funding under EU Horizon 2020; go to https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/default/files/jrc-­‐ study-­‐tomorrow-­‐healthly-­‐society.pdf The report identifies ten research priorities, grouped into four thematic areas:

• towards healthier eating: integrated policymaking • food, nutrients and health: cross-­‐interactions and emerging risks • making individualised diets a reality • shaping and coping with the 2050 food system

Thirdly, at the EFAD General Meeting (GM), delegates

were invited to undertake a short Foresight activity to identify challenges to the profession in Europe in the next 25-­‐30 years. The workshop raised many questions and proved to be highly thought provoking. The summary outcomes from the GM workshop were:

• A greater emphasis on self-­‐care; use of internet/virtual health care; use of gene therapy to reduce chronic diseases; increase in malnutrition because of greater social division and ageing population – increasing the role of dietitian as educator • Greater use of novel foods together with processed or home produced foods, food choice becomes a social responsibility – increasing the role of dietitian as advisor, eg to industry and government • Increasing use of robots and intelligent fridges; energy crisis worsens leading to more anxiety, depression, isolation – increasing the role of dietitian as counsellor

Do you agree with one, two or all three of these as potential futures for the role of the dietitian by 2040 -­‐ or maybe none of them? EFAD welcomes comments from our readers on these possible scenarios.

The workshop participants then went on to consider what changes might be needed now (particularly in higher education) to prepare our current students for their new roles in 2040. National Dietetic Associations also need to work through these possible scenarios in order to anticipate particular need in their own countries. I can recommend reading the Report shown here, as it predicts future scenarios of how life in our communities will be like in 2050. Maybe 2015 needs to be our Foresight year!

Anne de Looy President, EFAD Professor of Dietetics, Plymouth University, England ________________________________________________________________________________________________ EFAD Newsletter December 2014 www.efad.org 2

European Specialist Dietetic Networks: Mission for ESDN Older Adults

The newly-­‐formed ESDN Older Adults has agreed a mission statement, aims and objectives:

Mission We will translate scientific knowledge on ageing and geriatric nutrition into evidence-­‐ based practical information and tools, enabling dietitians in Europe to improve dietetic care of older adults.

Purpose Overall, we aim to promote the role of the dietitian in this specialist field. We will accomplish this aim by:

Harriët Jager-­‐Wittenaar

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

developing and updating position papers and briefing papers on the role of the dietitian in this field developing advanced competence statements for dietitians who are working with older adults sharing and learning from dietetic practices for older adults across Europe engaging all dietitians working in this field across Europe through the ESDN membership liaising as appropriate with other European professional groups and monitor the developments in education and LLL of other health professionals in this field 6. liaising with other EFAD committees to develop the specialty in education, research and professional practice 7. developing research proposals (research questions, design, methodology) in order to promote the participation of dietitians in EU and other research projects

As reported on our last Newsletter, Harriët, is a registered dietitian and was recently appointed Professor of Clinical Malnutrition and Healthy Ageing at The Hanze University of Applied Sciences (Hanze UAS), Groningen, The Netherlands. This Professorship is the first one in The Netherlands that primarily focuses on early recognition and treatment of disease-­‐related malnutrition.

EFAD Research and Evidence Based Practice Committee (REBPc)

The Research and Evidence Based Practice committee (REBPc) will launch the next and last student e-­‐journal in the beginning of 2015. From then, it will be possible also for dietitians to submit articles in the new e-­‐journal. The REBPc will provide information for authors on the website in 2015.

Further, the REBPc would like to use the website to publish the database of dietitians involved in research, information about funding opportunities and teaching materials relating to research. You will be informed as soon as this information is available.

Elke Naumann Chair, EFAD Research and Evidence Based Practice Committee HAN University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

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EFAD General Meeting, 9 October, Athens, Greece

The Hellenic Dietetic Association hosted the 25th EFAD General Meeting (GM), which was attended by representatives from 26 National Dietetic Associations and 5 Education Associate Members. It was reported that EFAD now has: • 29 Full Member Associations • 4 Affiliate Member Associations • 27 Education Associate Members

Highlights from the meeting were: • Anne de Looy re-­‐elected as Honorary President 2014-­‐2018 • The British Dietetic Association re-­‐elected to the Executive Committee • The European Patients' Forum www.eu-­‐patient.eu to join the EFAD Scientific Reference and Advisory Group • In future EFAD would host a large conference every two years with a smaller conference and longer GM in alternate years. The next GM and conference will be 21-­‐25 October 2015 in Amsterdam

In 2014 EFAD participated in consultations on: • European Professional Card • Patient Safety and Quality of Healthcare • EU Drinking Water Directive • The European Skills Competences Occupations (ESCO) draft definitions • Granada Declaration for better protection of the health of migrants and ethnic minorities

EFAD was represented 26 times, including: • 5 European Commission events • WHO regional ministers meeting • 3 European Food Safety Authority Stakeholder Platform meetings • 2 Joint Programming Initiative Stakeholder Advisory Boards • EFAD member association events • 10 different experts were involved in representing EFAD -­‐ an increase on previous years

EFAD represents over 32,000 dietitians: 50% of all dietitians in Europe. This means that EFAD has a credible and influential voice when lobbying on behalf of dietitians. The President has an important role to play here and Anne reported that in September she attended the WHO European Regional Ministerial Conference in Copenhagen. EFAD needs information from its members about the projects that dietitians are involved in so that these can be reported back to WHO and the Ministers of Health.

The 8th EFAD-­‐DIETS conference, following the GM, was the most successful yet! It was attended by 358 delegates and 325 students. There were 87 presentations in total – all viewable on the EFAD website: www.efad.org/everyone/4513/5/0/32 Judith Liddell EFAD Secretary General Secretariat@efad.org

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World Diabetes Day

Friday 14 November 2014 was World Diabetes Day and is the only UN designated day for a non-­‐communicate disease. This recognises the global impact of the condition, which accounts for one death in the world every 15 seconds! The role of lifestyle in the management and prevention of diabetes was the key theme of this year’s World Diabetes Day. ESDN Diabetes has started to develop relationships with the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), and the previous lead Cathy Breen attended meetings in Brussels and at the EFAD/DIETS Conference at Lake Garda, Italy.

This year, due to time and financial constraints we could not have a presence in Brussels in the build-­‐up to World Diabetes Day. Instead we worked with EFAD partner, Breakfast is Best and The International Sweeteners Association to deliver two Twitter hours. Azmina (from the UK) and I co-­‐hosted the first hour; and for the second hour, Aimilia (from Greece) and I co-­‐hosted. Both hours featured lively conversations discussing the practicalities and evidence behind key nutritional questions relating to the lifestyle management of diabetes.

If you are interested in acting as a national link person to ESDN Diabetes, please contact me: duane.mellor@nottingham.ac.uk Early in 2015 we hope to survey dietitians across Europe who are working in diabetes in order to assess the current situation and help to promote the role of the dietitian in supporting people with diabetes. Currently limited data suggests that in many countries dietitians are not fully involved in supporting people for whom diet can be the primary treatment option. See the IDF Policy Puzzle www.idf.org/regions/EUR/policypuzzle

Twitter Chats and Dietetics

In the UK, dietitians are very Twitter active, a pattern also seen in many countries across Europe.

But, can the 140 character micro-­‐blogging platform be useful for sharing ideas, discussing evidence and engaging policy makers and service users? I would say a definite YES! to all three of these.

I was initially dragged into using Twitter by a sports scientist at a dietetic conference in Lodz in Poland. I began slowly; I started to follow my National Dietetic Association and a few influential and often outspoken dietetic colleagues that I knew. I didn't really start being very active until I moved to the University of Nottingham, where a number of my fellow academics and students are engaged in a Twitter community. Since then I have grown my list of contacts globally and regularly discuss dietetics with people across the planet!

I think Twitter came alive for me, in terms of conferences, at the last EFAD/DIETS meeting. Many participants shared ideas, comments from sessions and even pictures, giving the chance for people outside of the conference hall to hear about dietitians and the great work that they are doing. This is a concept called reach. If you post something on Twitter, all your followers (say 100) will see it, if 10 of those people 'retweet it' (post it again) and they each have 100 followers, then your message has a reach of over a 1000; so ideas, images and links to information can go viral very quickly.

Social media need to be treated with respect and standards of professionalism and practice apply equally in the social media world as they do in the real world. In the UK, there was a case of a dietitian who got into trouble with the UK regulator because of something that she had posted on a blog. So, simply put: don’t say anything on Twitter that you would not say to an individual face-­‐to-­‐face.

Duane Mellor Lead, ESDN Diabetes Lecturer, School of Biosciences University of Nottingham, England

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Dietitians Involved in Tackling Childhood Obesity in Europe

Childhood obesity is a growing problem within the EU. In 2010 about one third of children aged between 6 and 9 years were overweight or obese. Such children are likely to have poor school performance and eventually poor health as adults, eg increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and even premature death. Every year, 2.8 million EU citizens lose their lives to weight-­‐ related diseases. Obesity and overweight have a financial impact too: up to 7% of healthcare budgets go Photo courtesy of wikipedia, labeled for re-­‐use towards treating weight-­‐related problems. Substantial indirect costs occur from lost productivity arising from work absences related to overweight and obesity.

In February 2014, the EU High Level Group on Nutrition and Physical Activity (HLG) agreed to a European Action Plan on Childhood Obesity. The plan involves the active and wide participation of all stakeholders involved in this field. The EU Platform for Action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health connects industry, NGOs and professional bodies such as EFAD. The Platform was asked to develop concrete actions supporting the implementation of the action plan. The plan also proposes voluntary initiatives to support a healthy start in life:

• promote healthier environments (especially in schools and preschools) • restrict marketing and advertising aimed at children • inform and empower families • encourage physical activity • increase research

In June the EC called for Member States to promote policies and initiatives such as encouraging and supporting adequate breastfeeding and making healthy dietary options that are accessible and affordable to all citizens.

The HLG has been working in close collaboration with WHO/Europe to ensure that an adequate monitoring system is put in place to keep track of the progress of the Action Plan. In addition, a Joint Action on Nutrition and Physical Activity starting in 2015 will further support the actions of Member States.

Addressing childhood obesity must be a priority and the EU is committed to supporting the initiatives of Member States. All stakeholders, such as EFAD and the dietitians that it represents, have a significant role to play in improving healthy diets and regular physical activity among our children.

John F Ryan Chaiman, EU Platform on Diet, Physical Activity & Health Acting Director DG Health and Consumers, European Commission

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Creation of The First European Dietetic Students Network

The conference in Athens offered the largest and most varied student programme ever. Around 400 students participated; most came from Greece, but also many from other countries such as Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and Turkey. Even some students from last year’s conference had returned, so we can definitely call this a huge success! Students were able to follow the general programme, but also there were specific student activities organized as in previous conferences. During the different poster sessions, students were also able to present their own work to the international audience of professional dietitians.

On Day 1, students were welcomed and introduced to the idea of networking in conferences. In the afternoon there were two inspiring presentations. Firstly, Evelina Dimitrakopoulou from IFMSA (International Federation of Medical Students Associations) talked to us about student experience and good practice. Secondly, Ursula Lukas (German Association of Dietitians) spoke about working overseas as a graduate dietitian, illustrated by a case study from a project in Africa. Several students in the audience were clearly eager to be involved in such projects. In the evening, there were some very enjoyable social events arranged by Iliana Michali (Hellenic Dietetic Association), who guided us to Plaka in central Athens together with local Greek students for some entertainment and a typical dinner.

On Day 2, Koen Vanherle (Artesis Plantijn University College, Antwerp) led an interactive workshop, which could be called a true milestone for all dietetic students. Indeed, after three rounds of brainstorming and discussion, the first European dietetic students network in Europe was established. The students adopted an initial network structure and this will be elaborated and refined during the following weeks, with full support of EFAD. We will communicate this process to all students and HEIs in the near future, to promote and expand our student network.

After this hard work, another evening of fun was on the menu, this time bringing us to a restaurant in a student area where we could celebrate our successful outcomes. Students sang and played guitars to accompany the delicious Greek food and some new wonderful friendships were born. The local atmosphere of ancient Athens and the Mediterranean climate made it even more unforgettable.

On Day 3, there were the final presentations and awards made for best student poster. Two of our own students had a special surprise for the audience: with guitars, they sang as they had done the night before in the restaurant. It really touched the audience, and we couldn’t imagine a better way to end our conference! We already invite all dietetic students to participate (again) in our next conference, you will indeed return home with a bag full of ideas, professional connections and international friendships! Information and photos from the Athens conference can be found on the EFAD website and Facebook page.

Koen Vanherle DIETS/EFAD Students Key Contact

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EFSA Stakeholder Consultative Platform Brussels, 19-­‐20 November 2014

At this meeting, one particular point of interest to dietitians was the subject of exposure to acrylamide. Another recurrent point of interest on the EFSA agenda is the scientific evaluation of allergens.

It has become clear that food intolerance is not included in the scope of current scientific opinion on this topic. EFSA stakeholders from industry asked about the possibility of establishing thresholds for determining and labelling of cross-­‐contaminants. Items on the agenda for discussion in 2015 include food flavourings and food contact materials.

At the meeting, EFSA emphasized the need for an open communication with stakeholders and consumers, in particular its request for two-­‐way communication with stakeholders. This was reflected in two break-­‐out sessions to debate methodologies in risk assessment and how to be on the forefront when emerging risks are identified. All stakeholders highly appreciated this approach.

Call For Speakers

On 14-­‐16 October 2015 in Milan, EFSA will also be holding their 2nd high-­‐level scientific conference related to food sustainability/security/safety and quality. One of the presentations will deal with the impact of intestinal micro-­‐organisms on health. EFSA is currently seeking speakers for this conference: www.efsa.europa.eu/en/events/event/151014.htm

Michael Gore EFAD Representative, Stakeholder Platform General Manager, Food Safety Consultant -­‐ Auditor Quality Point GCV

The Next EFAD Newsletter

The deadline for submissions for the Spring Newsletter is 28 February 2015.

Please send your articles / news / photos / logos to: editor@efad.org

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Save the Dates

EFAD General Meeting and Conference Amsterdam, The Netherlands 21-­‐25 October 2015 Deadline for Submissions for the Spring Newsletter: 28 February 2015

www.efad.org ________________________________________________________________________________________________ EFAD Newsletter December 2014 www.efad.org 9