Abstract
After the numbers 3 and 10, the number 40 seems to be the most firmly imbedded in the lore and numerology of Western culture. This can be traced to the Old Testament scriptures, with the “forty days and forty nights” of rain that created the diluvium in which Noah, his family, and his Ark assured continuation of the world’s populations. There were also 4 decades of wandering in the desert after the flight from Egypt until Moses led the Israelites to the walls of Jericho. From the New Testament, we have 40 days in Lent to commemorate the period of Christ’s fasting and meditating in the wilderness before deciding to proceed to Jerusalem, instead of Jericho, and face the Passion of Good Friday; that came 3 years after a similar period of wilderness fasting and enduring temptation before originally commencing his ministry. And in Islamic lore, how many thieves did Ali Baba have to overcome in the “open sesame” hide-out in the 1001 Arabian Nights? Closer to my home, in Guatemala, we have a custom of the Cuarentena, the 40-day period of ritual special postpartum care for the indigenous Mayan mother and newborn. The Food and Nutrition Bulletin (FNB) printed its first issue in October 1978, as the official publication for the newly established World Hunger Programme (WHP) of the United Nations University (UNU), emerging from the Protein Advisory Group Bulletin. Its founder was Prof Nevin Scrimshaw, who had been cochair of the Protein Advisory Group and would be the coordinator of the WHP of the UNU. A brief history of this passage can be found in an earlier editorial. 1 As the FNB enters into its volume 40, we shall commemorate and celebrate its 40th anniversary year across the 4 issues of 2019, sporting a blue hue of the cover pages for the cycle.
From its earliest years until the present, the journal has had only 3 editors-in-chief. In the commemoration component, we shall follow its evolution in publishing and other contributions through the editorial periods beginning with that of Nevin Stewart Scrimshaw. He passed away in 2013 at the age of 95, such that the recently completed 2018 was his centennial year. I am fortunate to have his daughter, Dr Susan C. Scrimshaw, the current chair of the Board of Directors of the Nevin Scrimshaw International Nutrition Foundation, to have composed with me a joint Commentary, Nevin Stewart Scrimshaw, MD, PhD, MPH January 20, 1918-February 8, 2013, Founder of the Food and Nutrition Bulletin: Two Perspectives, 2 which follows in this issue. Comparable contributions from the successor editors will appear in subsequent issues over the year.
In preparation for the anniversary, all of the articles published in the pages of the regular issues and as special supplements since its founding have been digitized and placed online, at the disposition of the readership, at https://journals.sagepub.com/loi/fnba. To illustrate and capture the character of publications through the first 23 years of the journal, moreover, we have selected a set of 17 unsolicited contributions and over 30 articles from invited authors in special supplements as companion online material for this first issue. This is by no means an exhaustive collection, but it reproduces papers considered still to be relevant for contemporary reading, while illustrating the breadth of topics published through the era. Included are several publications with transcendental breakthrough insights. Also in the online material is a supplement published in 2010, years after the Scrimshaw period, but organized by Nevin to document the history of the researchers of the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama and their investigative legacy. We invite the readers to access and peruse the complementary online materials along with the anniversary-related and author-initiated text.
A journal that exclusively looks backward, however, becomes a library—or worse, a museum. The principal mission of any scientific journal is receiving, evaluating, and disposing of a stream of newly submitted manuscripts. Scientific journals are, therefore, inherently forward-leaning, looking into the future. Thus, the celebratory part of this FNB 40th anniversary series consists of papers that project forward. Their purpose is to set the stage for what has been established in the past, to lay out a panorama of what is currently being published and being prepared for publication, and most importantly to project what the past and current research activity suggests about what should be researched as priority contribution to the future of scientific publication. We asked a selection of colleagues of the FNB to synthesize their judgment in a visionary context to address this task. We shall offer this vision for the forthcoming content of public health nutrition publishing through both geographic and disciplinary themes. In the first 3 issues, beginning here with Latin America, we shall follow a geographic route; the subsequent issues will address Africa and South Asia. To grace the present pages with his judgment, we have invited Prof Manuel Ruz, Department Head of the Nutrition Department of the University of Chile in Santiago, to join me in a commentary. With training in Central America and a career in Chile, Manuel literally spans the region of interest. The second anniversary feature in this issue is Dr Ruz’s and my piece, A Vision for Nutritional Research in the Latin American Region. 3 The final issue of the volume 40 year will feature thematic vision papers on topics of infection and nutrition, chronic disease, growth and development, food policy and economics, mixed methods, and investigative impact—each viewed from past, present, and future vision perspectives.
This journal has served the dissemination of insights and views for the improvement of writing experience and public health application for low- and middle-income settings for 4 decades, and we take pride and joy as we reflect on that legacy. We offer a selection of original contributions and a review article in the present issue bearing on a diverse array of contemporary themes, reflecting dynamics of the day-to-day routine of receipt of manuscripts. Their topics range from the effect of climate change on the nutritional quality of grains in India to cost profiles for school lunches and to maternal–child nutrition determinants in 2 West African settings. Primary foods, such as oils, cereal grains, fruits, and vegetables, are covered in an additional 3 contributions, while the commodities in international food aid are featured in a narrative review. Combined with this contemporary fare, we share lessons from our past history, along with the notions of experts on the what the Brave New World of the future of the genre might offer to the pages of this journal. The editorial corps looks forward to sharing the experience of this year-long anniversary journey with its contributors and readership.