It is a pleasure and an honour to address the World Food Summit on behalf of the World Health Organization and to pledge our wholehearted support for its objectives. Good nutrition is essential for both physical and mental health. The improvement of nutrition has therefore featured prominently in WHO's work since the Organisation was founded in 1946. It is inseparable from our health work both in its own right and as a component of other activities such as immunization, maternal and child health care and health promotion.
Nutritional security is one of the major items on the agenda here.
The International Conference on Nutrition, jointly held here in 1992, by WHO and FAO, marked an important shift in the world's perception of food problems towards consideration of quality rather than mere quantity. That Conference helped to make the world aware that food needs cannot be defined in terms only of food security. Both physical health and mental health depend to a very signficant extent on the precise nature, quality and combination of the nutrients consumed. I have made nutrition a priority for WHO, both as a programme division and as a crucial aspect of our disease prevention and control activities. Much of the sickness and death attributed to the major communicable diseases is in fact caused by malnutrition which makes the body less able to withstand infections when they strike.