It would also have been an advantage if all four transportation modes could have been compared, however this was not possible due to the risk of conducting type II errors. The study design, with half of the children having 40 min/day of extra physical education, could also influence the inferences. However, we found children with different transportation modes in both the intervention and control molarity calculator groups and the results remained after adjusting for being in extra physical classes or not. Finally, the one-year follow-up in the children with extra physical classes and two-year follow-up in the control group could also create problems. However, this should not influence the inferences as we compared the exact annual changes, as all children stayed in Tanner stage I and as the literature infers that growth is linear during these years [19-22,24-27,38].

All results remained the same after including follow-up period as a covariate. Conclusions In 7-9-year old Swedish children with a high level of daily physical activity, the mode of transportation to school (walking/cycling versus car/bus) during one year did not influence the gain in lean mass, fat mass or physical performance. However, well-designed randomised controlled studies are required to determine the influence of transportation mode to school in children across different ages, school levels and regions (rural versus urban living). Acknowledgements Financial support for this study was provided by the Swedish Research Council, the Centre for Athletic Research, the Region Skane Foundation, and the ?sterlund Foundation.

Nutrition is increasingly recognised as a key determinant of public health. In 2003, the World Health Organization and Food and Agricultural Organization published a report [1] which includes a summary of current scientific knowledge concerning the relationships between nutritional factors and the most common diet-related diseases worldwide, such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, obesity, type 2 diabetes, dental disorders and osteoporosis. Despite the overwhelming evidence pinpointing nutrition as a key determinant of public health, no coordinated national scientific organisation in the field of human nutrition existed in Belgium until last December. Although the reasons for this historical structural deficiency in Belgium are complex and multifactorial, three main causal mechanisms can be identified.

Firstly, the field of nutrition in Belgium is generally Drug_discovery scattered. Nutrition research units are em-bedded in a variety of academic departments and often suffer from poor visibility. At the same time, nutritional education is integrated in different parts of programmes/curricula in universities and academic institutions and at a variety of levels. Although significant progress has been made during the last years and several nutrition courses are taught, a formal degree in human nutrition or public health nutrition does not exist.