From the editor.

The September issue of the journal spans research in the core business of Nutrition and Dietetics with six original research articles, one review, two insight papers and a clinical case study Once again, childhood obesity is at centre stage in the public health and community nutrition research papers. Oakely, an expert in using physical activity in the treatment of childhood obesity, provides the Editorial. This is followed up with the leading article by Gibbons, a fellow of the Dietitians Association of Australia and a well-recognised expert in the dietary management of childhood obesity. Gibbons lends her extensive knowledge and experience in paediatric dietetics to provide key practice insights in her discussion of the leading article. Here, Golley and colleagues show how dietitians might incorporate parenting skills into their childhood obesity management practices. The research demonstrates the value of a broad understanding of the social context in which childhood obesity emerges, where food is a key factor but not the only one. Likewise, the questionnaire-based research of 112 mothers by Crouch and colleagues demonstrates the significance of mothers' attitudes and perceptions of overweight in the family management of overweight and obesity. They found that mothers could detect obesity but not overweight. Mothers were more concerned about their daughters' than about their sons' weight, but this was not reflected in control over feeding. These two papers together provide the reader with a lot to think about in regard to the current debates on the role of parents in managing childhood obesity.

The social context of obesity remained a consideration in the final obesity-related paper. Suzuki and colleagues report on the prevalence of obesity and underweight in a cohort of 1757 Japanese college women. They found a high prevalence of underweight but with concurrent increase in body fatness, implicating lifestyle factors associated with college life. One of these factors is dietary intake, and the next paper by Di Candilo et al. reports on how better data from three-day food diaries completed by adolescents (13 year of age) might be obtained. Follow-up phone calls were found to significantly increase reporting of energy and certain nutrients compared with initial data from the three-day records.

Moving to the clinical setting, and once again, malnutrition of hospital patients emerges as the critical issue. In an audit using Subjective Global Assessment with 2208 acute and 839 aged care patients in 20 public hospitals and 6 aged care facilities, Banks and colleagues confirmed that malnutrition is a significant problem requiring action in recognition, prevention and treatment. This research stands as a reminder to the profession that there is a need for intervention across the nutrition spectrum, and context plays a large part in determining the actual problem. Likewise, the tools of practice are important in dietary management. In the clinical setting, nutritional assessment tools are as important as dietary assessment tools in the community, so it is good to see the paper by Neumann et al. assessing the inter-relater reliability of the Mini Nutritional Assessment tool. In a cross-sectional study of a clinical sample of 38 adults aged [greater than or equal to]65 years, they were able to comment usefully on features of the tool for assessing body composition and nutritional biochemistry Different clinical populations will have unique features that the practitioner has to consider, as the insight paper by Pitt and colleagues shows in their report on nutritional intakes of patients admitted with diabetes-related food complications. In a simple observation of nutritional intakes, the authors suggest a possible need to consider the adequacy of dietary micronutrients where wound healing is required. Assessing energy intake is another matter. In their review of estimating energy requirements for adult hospital patients, Ferrie and Ward commented on the usefulness of predictive equations and some of the potential pitfalls that readers would no doubt find of interest.

Overconsumption of energy in clinical populations can also occur, as Orazio et al. report in their insight paper on obesity post renal transplant. In their analysis of anthropometric data from a sample of 199 renal transplant recipients, they found that central obesity was a common problem, particularly for those aged less than 45 years. The final context which we deal with in this issue concerns private dietetic practice in a nursing home setting. We finish with a case study of a 38-year-old man with acquired brain injury, focusing on lessons learnt for developing long-term enteral nutrition services.

The breadth and depth of research displayed in this issue demonstrates a strong commitment to scientific practice, as well as healthy growth and development of the profession. The continuing education and book review sections add to the important knowledge support the journal provides. It is a great pleasure to be publishing the growing body of research in Nutrition and Dietetics, from all domains of practice, from Australia, New Zealand and beyond.