Loes Neven
Providing Insight Into Healthy and Environmentally Responsible Diets
As dietitian and innovation manager at the Flemish Institute for Healthy Living, Loes Neven translates nutrition science into practical recommendations for healthy and sustainable eating. At the same time, she is critical of the proliferation of advice on fat, sugar and other nutrients. “Nutrition scientists studied the effect of sugar and fat on our health,” she wrote in the Belgian newspaper De Morgen, “but forgot that sugar and fat are part of nutrients, and nutrients are part of a wider diet. Focusing only on calories and individual nutrients barely helps us move forward.”
With the Flemish Institute for Healthy Living, Loes Neven was instrumental in the creation of the upside-down food pyramid, a realistic and scientifically based model that takes into account current eating habits in Flanders. On top of that, it provides insight into healthy and environmentally responsible diets. Because those two often go – who would have thought? – hand in hand. But perhaps the most important thing about the upside-down food pyramid: everyone is able to use it. For that is Neven’s call to everyone who speaks on nutrition: “Don’t make it too complicated. Nutrition doesn’t have to be advanced mathematics.”