Fifteen years after its first publication, after more than two years of work by a panel of experts and with 200 terms updated and shared, the new FeSIN Glossary, Federation of Italian Nutrition Societies, entitled “Nutrition and Diet in Words,” has been launched. The new work will be officially presented today in Rome, at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità.
For the new edition, four FeSIN‑federated scientific societies worked together: the Italian Society of Human Nutrition (SINU), the Italian Society of Pediatric Nutrition (SINUPE), the Italian Society of Food Sciences (SISA), and the Scientific Association for Food, Nutrition and Dietetics (ASAND). The project also benefited from the contributions of the Italian Association of Dietetics and Clinical Nutrition (ADI) and the Italian Society of Artificial Nutrition and Metabolism (SINPE), which had taken part in the first edition.
The new Glossary defines 200 terms, essential in the fields of basic, applied, and clinical nutrition. In this edition, an objective, consensus‑based methodology was applied. Whenever available, definitions come from or are derived from national and supra‑national reference documents (DRV, EFSA, WHO, ESPEN); in other cases, references to specific sources are provided in the Glossary’s bibliography.
“The FeSIN Glossary revision updates the need to share a common language that is updated, scientifically correct and clear, to enable a dialogue free of misunderstandings among all scientific societies operating in the field of Nutrition and Dietetics, while also being easy to use for the general public, the food industry, textbook publishers, journalists, social media, etc.”– affirms Professor Bordoni, secretary general of FeSIN. “Scientific terminology, just like everyday language, evolves over time and these changes have made updating the Glossary necessary.”
At the presentation event, together with Prof. Bordoni (FeSIN) and the Presidents of the four federated societies, Anna Tagliabue (SINU), Elvira Verduci (SINUPE), Silvia Migliaccio (SISA) and Ersilia Troiano (ASAND), will speak:
- From the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, President Rocco Bellantone; Director General Andrea Piccioli; Umberto Agrimi, Director of the Department of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health Veterinary and Laura Rossi, Director of the Department of Food, Nutrition and Health and SINUPE delegate;
- Ugo Della Marta, Director General of the Directorate for Food Hygiene and Safety and Nutrition (DGISAN) at the Ministry of Health;
- Sladjana Šobajić, president of the Federation of European Nutritional Societies;
- Barbara Paolini, president of ADI;
- Antonella Lezo, president of SINPE;
- Luca Scalfi, vice president of SINU;
- Giulia Cairella, SINU delegate;
- Maria Lorella Giannì, SINUPE delegate;
- Gianluca Imperio, national secretary of ASAND;
- Nicolò Merendino, treasurer of SISA and FeSIN deputy secretary.
The new edition of the Glossary
The main novelties concern the number of terms, nearly doubling, and the metrology used, i.e., the objective consensus approach to ensure confidence in the overall agreement on terms and definitions included.
The need for a new edition arose to:
- offer a single, unambiguous definition for terms such as “food allergy,” “disorders of eating and nutrition,” “hunger,” “food intolerance,” “standard portion”;
- explain and define phrases now widely used and central to public understanding: “fermented food,” “antioxidants,” “non‑communicable chronic diseases,” “sarcopenia,” “sustainability of the food system”;
- clear up concepts too often confused with one another, which can lead to misinterpretation, such as “microbiome and microbiota,” “prebiotics, probiotics, postbiotics, and synbiotics.”
The new glossary includes and explains the meaning of:
- terms derived from the Fifth Revision of the Nutrient and Energy Reference Values for the Italian population (LARN, SINU 2024), such as “adequate intake” or “estimated average requirement”;
- neologisms such as “globesity”;
- words implying new concepts, such as “ultra‑processed food,” “non‑celiac gluten sensitivity”;
- words borrowed from other languages, such as “One Health approach” or “Nutrition Care Process”;
- new terms arising from new scientific evidence and/or methodologies, and the issuing of regulations, such as “bioaccessibility,” “bioavailability,” “glycemic load,” “epigenetics,” and “precision nutrition.”
The work also includes modifying certain terms to make them more current, for example: “bioactive component of food,” “nutritional label,” “front‑of‑pack labeling,” “obesity.”
“We hope that this new tool, which our Federation has chosen to put at the disposal of the entire community, scientific and non‑scientific, can become a benchmark for the correct use of words in Nutrition and Dietetics and can help avoid the many ambiguities and frequent interpretation errors that unfortunately punctuate communication in this field. We are aware that the work done is not definitive, but will require future updates, which the four Federated Societies (ASAND, SINU, SINUPE and SISA) commit to pursuing, hoping for increasing participation by a growing number of involved Scientific Societies,”concludes Professor Bordoni.
The glossary is available, free of charge, in two versions, print and digital, downloadable from FeSIN’s website www.fesin.it and the federated societies’ sites
Abbonati a Karla Miller
