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Introduction

A virtual workshop titled Challenges and Opportunities for Precision and Personalized Nutrition, held August 10–12, 2021, was convened by the Food Forum of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.¹ Planning committee chair Eric A. Decker, University of Massachusetts Amherst, welcomed participants and provided a brief overview of the Food Forum and the workshop. The workshop’s objective was to explore potential challenges and opportunities in the application of precision and personalized nutrition approaches to optimize dietary guidance and improve nutritional status.

The workshop opened with a review of the current evidence base, including potential definitions for precision and personalized nutrition, research designs and methodologies, and limitations in design and data (Chapter 2). The session that followed explored innovative methodologies and technologies at the genetic, physiologic/microbiome, individual, and social-ecologic scales of precision nutrition (Chapter 3). The final session addressed implementation of precision and personalized nutrition, including academic, regulatory, and industry perspectives on opportunities and challenges (Chapter 4). The workshop agenda, acronyms and abbreviations used in this publication, and biographical sketches of the workshop

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¹ The workshop agenda, presentations, and other materials are available at https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/08-10-2021/challenges-and-opportunities-for-precision-andpersonalized-nutrition-a-workshop (accessed October 15, 2021).

speakers and planning committee members can be found in Appendixes A, B, and C, respectively. The workshop’s statement of task is presented in Box 1-1.²

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² The workshop planning committee’s role was limited to planning the workshop. This Proceedings of a Workshop was prepared by an independent rapporteur as a factual summary of what occurred at the workshop. Statements, recommendations, and opinions expressed are those of independent presenters and participants, and are not necessarily endorsed or verified by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, nor should they be construed as reflecting any group consensus.