You must have wondered why men in the US and elsewhere obsess about vast breasts. Easy, says Geoffrey Cannon. The reason is... read his column

Accesss this month's Geoffrey Cannon column here
Access this month's Reggie Annan column here
Access this month's Claudio Schuftan column here

This month we celebrate our regular columnists: Claudio Schuftan, Reggie Annan, and Geoffrey Cannon, and encourage all our readers to access, enjoy, download and share their columns. In his column, Geoffrey Cannon pursues one of his abiding themes. This is that much knowledge and wisdom concerning nutrition, disease, health and wisdom is beyond the reach of conventional scientific investigation. This may be because the techniques currently accepted as sources of valid evidence are inadequate, or because the key insights are not to be found within the fields accepted as relevant. His example this month, is the strange obsession of many men with unnaturally big breasts. The reason for this, he proposes, is ..... read his column, and find out.

In his column this month, Claudio Schuftan has some firm advice for all readers who will be attending our Rio2012 congress at the end of April; and Reggie Annan looks back to 2011 to seek inspiration in this year of 2012 for Africa.

Time to walk tall

Three giants of public health nutrition in the modern age, whose vision changed history. Left to right, Justus von Liebig, John Boyd Orr, Tu Giay

This month's World Nutrition commentary is all about how to increase the capacity and competence of public health nutrition professionals. The accompanying editorial points out that throughout history and in most modern times, nutrition has in effect been public health nutrition. Thus: 'The great German biochemist Justus von Liebig (1803-1873, above left, commemorated on a German postage stamp), was the man of science who above all others in his time, saw nutrition as a biochemical discipline. He was supported and funded by the governments of his day, because his discovery of protein as a growth promoter for plants, animals and humans, and his emphasis on its importance, was seen as crucial to the politics and economics of the European Powers (5). Big strong young people are more effective both as workers and as soldiers.

Again, ' John Boyd Orr (1880-1971, centre above), the founding director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) believed that the one secure way for nations to prosper and to eliminate starvation and gross malnutrition in their populations, was to be self-sufficient in food production. He won a Nobel Peace Prize. Earlier in his career, aware that Germany lost the First World War largely because the civilians crucial to the war effort were exhausted because of food insecurity and undernutrition, he was an architect of the state-controlled British food policy in the Second World War, which ensured that everybody had adequate and nourishing food' .

Further: 'Another example of history being shaped by nutrition scientists is provided by the story of the Vietnamese agronomist Tu Giay (1921-2009, right above), a former president of the Vietnamese nutrition society. As part of the strategy masterminded by General Giap, commander-in-chief of the North Vietnamese armies, Tu Giay devised a pocket-book given to all soldiers in the field. This showed them among other things which wild foods were good to eat and which were poisonous, and how to cook underground without making smoke. Victory over the foreign invading forces was due to the astounding resilience of the Viet Cong forces, most of whom were short and light by what are now generally recommended standards'.

So we should walk tall, in these difficult times. Who among our young members is the new Justus von Liebig, or John Boyd Orr, or Tu Giay? This remains to be discovered.