Preconception nutrition: building advocacy and social movements to stimulate action

Abstract

Action to improve preconception nutrition is a collective, societal responsibility. We believe that the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) society is ideally placed to facilitate the development of a global agenda for preconception nutrition which recognises the societal importance of nutrition for young women and men, and supports them in optimising their nutritional status for the benefit of the next generation. In this paper, we outline four key actions that can be taken by the members of DOHaDʼs international society located across 67 countries, and nine regional societies, to demonstrate this leadership role. The recommended actions to place preconception nutrition at the top of national and regional agendas include (i) continuing to build the scientific evidence, (ii) monitoring of progress made by governments and commercial companies, (iii) developing advocacy coalitions that unite individuals and organisations around common policy options and (iv) working with partners to develop an emotive and empowering preconception nutrition awareness campaign. Collectively, these actions hold the potential to develop into a preconception nutrition social movement to invoke high-level government support and across-sector policy action, while raising public demand for action and engaging corporate actors.

A wake-up call for preconception health: a clinical review

“…British Journal of General Practice, May 2021 235 and young people. 22 As the evidence for effective preconception interventions is becoming clearer, 8,9 attention should now turn to intervention delivery, including fortifying food with folic acid and equipping primary care teams to help people receive the preconception care they need at the right time. Box 3 lists key questions for future research.…”

Evaluation and interpretation of latent class modelling strategies to characterise dietary trajectories across early life: a longitudinal study from the Southampton Women’s Survey

“…Our observation supports the recommendations outlined in the UK Preconception Partnership strategy (52) , which highlights the crucial role that maternal pre-pregnancy health, including unhealthy dietary habits, can have on future child health. The Partnership recommends improving population level health, irrespective of pregnancy planning, and at an individual level for those planning to become pregnant (53,54) . Although the preconception period is an important time to intervene, there are other opportunities to improve diet quality across early life.…”