British Nutrition Foundation

Two of our team, Frances Meek and Ewen Trafford (BSc, MSc, ANutr) had a great day at Goldsmiths, University of London yesterday with their newest cohort of trainee Design and Technology teachers. We covered food and nutrition in the secondary curriculum, nutrition and healthy eating, practical food skills and support for teachers and pupils from the British Nutrition Foundation and Food – a fact of life (our education programme in schools). We did a lot of active learning, which is important to get pupils (and trainee teachers!) thinking harder. More more about our education programme see https://lnkd.in/eNFmMa-U

Delighted to be at Newcastle University today to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their Human Nutrition and Exercise Research Unit. So much research being presented spanning many different fields of nutritional and exercise sciences - it's going to be a fascinating day! We are so pleased to have former director of the Centre, Prof John Mathers, as Chair of the Foundation's Board of Trustees. His expertise in nutrition science research is invaluable for supporting our work.

In the autumn and winter months, the sun is not strong enough for us to make vitamin D in our skin. Government advice is that everyone should consider taking a daily vitamin D supplement from October to March. Vitamin D is also found in a limited range of foods, including oily fish, eggs and fortified foods such as spreads and breakfast cereals - see here for more info https://lnkd.in/ehHTgVvb

Food and mood are closely linked. The food we eat provides us with the energy and nutrients our brain needs to work well. This in turn may affect our emotions and how we think. Our mental health can also influence our eating habits. Our new article explains how foods and eating habits that may affect our mood and also how how feeling depressed, anxious, or stressed can affect what we eat – and how to manage this https://lnkd.in/eBbzys62

📣 We are delighted to announce that Alex Johnstone, Professor in Human Nutrition, Theme Lead for Nutrition, Obesity and Disease at the The Rowett Institute, is joining our Advisory Committee. https://lnkd.in/evncTM5K Prof Johnstone brings with her a wealth of knowledge and over 20 years research experience on the science of appetite, diet-related health and disease. She is currently leading two major research projects ‘FIO Food’ and ‘DIO Food’ looking at food insecurity and obesity, and on diet and health inequalities respectively.

📣 We are hiring! https://lnkd.in/g8gqaZcq The British Nutrition Foundation is looking for a Communications Officer with experience of working in a communications role within a non-profit and/or public health environment. You’ll be an enthusiastic individual with openness to new ideas and have a strong track record of delivering engaging social media content across different channels. Your role’s purpose is to raise the profile of the British Nutrition Foundation as a public-facing charity and a trusted source of information about food and nutrition. For full details please see https://lnkd.in/g8gqaZcq

While everybody breaks their overnight fast at some point in the day, the importance of doing so within 2 to 3 hours of waking is much debated. A new Spotlight in Nutrition Bulletin looks at the research on the health impacts of breakfast. https://lnkd.in/e5TMtxrN Although healthy eating guidelines, such as those in the UK, advise against skipping breakfast and say that a healthy breakfast can help you get the nutrients you need for good health, many people, including around 20% of adolescents in the UK, do not eat breakfast during the week. More recently, research into time-restricted eating and the importance of smaller ‘eating windows’ during the day has led others to skip breakfast in order to prolong their ‘overnight fasting window’, despite research emphasising the benefits of earlier rather than later eating windows. As can be seen, the importance of eating breakfast for better health is still a hot topic for research. In the Spotlight, a review by Gibson-Moore et al (2023) discusses the importance of breakfast for the educational attainment, nutritional status and wellbeing of school aged children and young people. Two papers describe recent studies on the influence of eating breakfast or morning fasting on energy expenditure, bodyweight and behavioural and metabolic effects (Clayton et al, 2020; Ruddick-Collins et al, 2018), together with an editorial looking at chrono-nutrition more broadly (Pot, 2021). Finally, three other papers investigate associations between breakfast consumption and mental health in teenagers (Gürbüz et al, 2024), overweight and obesity in children aged 7 to 10 years (Costa et al, 2024) and an ultra-processed food dietary pattern in Brazilian schoolchildren (Belchor et al, 2022). Find out more and access the papers here https://lnkd.in/e5TMtxrN

Lovely to see the children get involved in making healthy breakfasts and we hope everyone had a great National Schools Breakfast Week - a big thank you to all the schools that took part! #BreakfastWeek

Starchy foods sometimes get a bad press but 'carbohydrate quality' is a key part of a healthy diet. In practice this means means eating mainly wholegrain and higher fibre types of carbohydrate and fewer refined versions. Starchy foods are a key food group in food-based dietary guidelines from around the world. As a group, they make a significant contribution to intakes of fibre and micronutrients, according to data from the UK. Find out more about in our article below: https://lnkd.in/eyQdfVYC

It's National School Breakfast Week! https://lnkd.in/gZajdZkp A healthy breakfast is really important for children and young people and we're encouraging schools to get involved. We have a poster, Good Breakfast Guide, classroom activities and parent factsheets to support schools https://lnkd.in/gZajdZkp