The American Nutrition Association is the combination of the American College of Nutrition, Board for Certification of Nutrition Specialists, Center for Nutrition Advocacy, Accreditation Council for Nutrition Professional Education and American Nutrition Association Foundation.
“As a unified professional association, the ANA addresses the chronic disease crisis by equipping health professionals with the science and practice of personalized nutrition,” explained the ANA’s CEO, Michael Stroka, JD, MBA, MS, CNS, LDN.
The association has worked on a definition for ‘personalized nutrition’, which will be published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition soon.
According to ANA, personalized nutrition is a field that leverages human individuality to drive nutrition strategies that prevent, manage and treat diseases and optimize health. It is the most important lever for preventing and reversing chronic illness and obesity, as poor nutrition poses a greater threat than tobacco, inactivity or any other risk factor.
Jeffrey Blumberg, PhD, FACN, FASN, CNS-S, ANA Board Chair, commented: “We now have a deep body of science underscoring the impact of nutrition as the single most powerful and modifiable determinant of our health. Genetics represents only a very small portion of the risk for chronic disease, while the overwhelming majority of the risk comes from modifiable actions we take every day. And personalized nutrition interventions hold the potential to have a profound impact.”
Watch the video to hear Stroka discuss the current state of the science around personalized nutrition, how the ANA is bringing together healthcare practitioners, nutrition scientists, students, and industry stakeholders, and what to watch out for from the ANA.