Submissions

Author Guidelines

World Nutrition (WN) charges neither authors nor readers. It is funded via World Public Health Nutrition Association membership fees and engages in no advertising or marketing activities. WN authors are automatically eligible to join WPHNA, for which the fees are lower for certain groups and regions. Editors and peer reviewers work on journal tasks on a strictly volunteer basis. The journal is editorially independent of the Association and thus free from conflicts of interest. It is published quarterly, on the last days of March, June, September, and December.

WN is a permanent journal. All content is permanently archived onhttps://archive.org/. The journal's name is simply World Nutrition. Another journal added the word "journal" to the title World Nutrition, starting in 2016, 6 years after World Nutrition began publishing.

Authors can submit previously unpublished original research, literature reviews, editorials, commentaries, book reviews or letters to the editor. It is unethical and unacceptable to submit an article to more than one publisher or journal simultaneously. (Each journal does a lot of work to review and edit your submission, and none wants to publish something already published elsewhere.) If you would like to publish an article similar to or translated from one published in another language, contact the editor to discuss this before submitting it. 

Substantive critiques of previously published articles in the journal are welcomed and, if warranted, will be published as a letter to the editor. The authors of any such critiqued article will be allowed to publish a response in the same issue. If you would like to contribute a regular column to the journal, please contact the editor to discuss this. 

There are no limits to the length of submissions, but literature reviews or commentaries longer than 2000 words should be preceded by an abstract. Adding an abstract to any submission on the metadata page increases its visibility because each word you enter there is searchable.

When you write your paper, do not copy anything directly from the internet into your Word document. First, remove all hidden formatting, for example, by copying first to Notepad or by using the far right paste option on the Word menu. 

All submissions are reviewed by the editors personally. We do not use AI in the editing process. Research papers, literature reviews, and evidence-based commentaries will also be sent for peer review. Peer reviewer and author identities are masked to make peer reviews double-blinded. Usually, at least two peer reviews must be complete before they are shared with authors. All submitted material will be handled in confidence except for the purposes of review and/or in order to investigate possible misconduct.

When authors are provided with reviewer responses and requested to revise and resubmit their manuscript, they should revise the manuscript accordingly. While authors are not required to conform to all reviewer requests, for substantive comments from peer reviewers, authors should explain their response if they believe the reviewer is incorrect or explain how the requested revision is beyond the scope of the article. 

We request that authors disclose the use of AI or translation websites in the actual writing of their manuscript. (This is not necessary if AI was used for something like checking the grammar.) Here are two examples of the kind of language we request be used: 

• "We used the AI tool ChatGPT to generate a draft of the literature review for our manuscript."
• "We used the AI tool LaMDA to translate our manuscript from Spanish to English."

In their cover letter to the editor, in the interests of enabling scientific scrutiny,  authors should disclose the full prompt used to generate the research results, the time and date of the query, the AI tool used, and its version. 

During the submission process, the corresponding author must add names and information for each coauthor. They are urged during this process to add all ORCID numbers. These can be obtained here: Register - ORCID

Please remember to submit both your manuscript and a separate cover page. On the cover page, each name is listed this way: first, middle, last name. Provide a complete and accurate affiliation (place of employment) for each. Please include ORCID numbers. 

                Typesetting

Research papers are sent for professional typesetting. Authors can see how they will look here. The World Public Health Nutrition Association pays this cost. Typesetting of other types of papers, such as Review Papers, can be done at the author's discretion. Costs for this will be offset by current membership fees paid by any coauthor. Or the authors can reimburse WPHNA for this cost. (We pay $65 plus $1.30 for every 10 references.) 

                Referencing

We encourage authors to use referencing liberally. In academic publishing, references are meant to buttress arguments, establish facts, and give credit where it's due. We ask that you refer to original research, rather than literature reviews. So-called "daisy-chain" referencing is far too often responsible for maintaining myths and for using poorly done research as "evidence." 

WN uses a simple author-date system of referencing because this is easier for authors who do not use reference management software. If you do have reference management software, the APA 7th Edition author-date style produces a reference list that is our preferred style. If you enter references manually, you must still use the author-date style, but you may omit minor details such as italicising journal names and comma placement, as long as what you do is internally consistent. 

If you copy references from the internet, note that they often use different referencing systems. It is your responsibility to make changes in them so they adhere to our requirements and are consistent with your other references. Note also that references from Google Scholar are often incomplete, and you must find a way to complete them in that case. They do not capitalise every word in journal names nor include DOIs, and thus must be edited by you.

Key Components & Formatting Rules for REFERENCE LIST:
1. Author(s):
    • Format: Last name, Initial(s).
    • Use a comma between authors
2. Year of Publication:
    • Follow the author(s) name(s) with the year, followed by a period.
    • Example: 2020.
3. Title of the Article:
     • Use sentence case (capitalise only the first word and proper nouns), 

  • Example: The impact of urban agriculture on food security.

 4. Title of the Journal:
      • Use italics and title case (headline-style capitalisation of every important word in the journal name).
      • Example: Journal of Food Science
5. Volume and Issue Number:
      • Provide the volume number, followed by the issue number in parentheses, followed by a colon and the page range. Do not use spaces.
      • Example: 45(3):212–225.
6. Page Range:
     • Give the full span of the article pages.
     • Example: 212–225.
7. Use "et al." for in-text citations when there are more than two authors. But only use one author's name in the text citation. 

8. DOI or URL:
    • If available, provide the DOI in full URL format:
       https://doi.org/...
     • If no DOI, provide the URL of the article if accessed online.

 Each citation in the text must be associated with one of the entries in the alphabetised reference list at the end of the document. In the text, as close as possible to where a reference is needed, only the surname of the author (or both if there are two; first author followed by "et al." if there are more than two) and then the year of the publication, should be placed in one set of parentheses. Thus, the journal reference below would be cited in the text as (Akob et al. 2025). Alternatively, one can write something like, "As Akob et al. (2025) have pointed out." If you cite two references with the same author and year, label the one you mention first as (Smith 2016a) and the next one as (Smith 2016b). 

Sample Reference List

1. Journal articles 

Akob F.A., Pillay K., Wiles N., Siwela M. (2025). Dietary intake and dietary diversity of adults and children in the North West region of Cameroon: A comparative study. World Nutrition,16(2):73–86.

The journal name is followed by the volume number, a colon, the issue number in parentheses (where possible), a colon, and then the page numbers -- with no spaces. 

2. Books and reports follow a similar format: author, date, title. Then comes the city of publication, followed by a colon and the publisher's name. Each important word, along with the first and last words in a title, is capitalised.

Thompson HS, Kelly WC. 1990. "Vegetable Crops". 5th Edition. New Delhi: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Ltd.

WHO. 2018. "Implementation Guidance: Protecting, Promoting and Supporting Breastfeeding in Facilities Providing Maternity and Newborn Services: The Revised Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative". https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/272943/9789241513807-eng.pdf?sequence=19

3. Book chapters or articles within an edited book. First comes the name of the author(s) of the chapter and the year. Then the title of the chapter. This is followed by In:, then the editors' names, then Eds., and the page numbers. The city: publisher comes last. 

Amir, Lisa H. 2010. "Medicines for breastfeeding women: risky business?" In: Wilma G. Nueland (Ed.), Breastfeeding: Methods, Benefits to the Infant and Mother and Difficulties, pp. 129-41. Hauppauge, New York: Nova Science Publishers.

USE OF STATISTICS

Authors are asked to examine whether the way percentages are calculated in tables is logical. For example, if the percentage malnourished is presented for two different groups, readers want to be able to compare the proportion malnourished in each group, which generally means all values presented in each vertical column will add up to 100%.

Many authors use p-values, often stating that they have chosen p<0.05 as the cut-off for rejecting the null hypothesis. However, it is preferable to present both magnitude-of-effect estimates (e.g., odds ratios, rate ratios, risk differences) and precision estimates (confidence intervals). Effect estimates should reflect the study design. For example, a case-control study might use an odds ratio, while a longitudinal study would use a hazards ratio. 

Additionally, findings should be discussed in the context of the broader literature to assess their consistency with existing evidence and relevance to different populations. Repeated observations of similar findings across studies with different designs, contexts, and populations strengthen the evidence that a real effect has been identified rather than one resulting from chance alone.

ADD YOUR METADATA

As part of the submissions process, you will be required to fill in a page asking for a range of information. These metadata are shared widely on the internet and thus assist people in finding your paper, for example, in Google Scholar searches. So it should be complete. Add each author's name in the correct order. Some information about each author is obligatory; additional information, such as position, department/institution, degree, and ORCID number, is optional. When you type in the names of disciplines involved (example: "public health nutrition") or keywords (example: "infant feeding"), you must place a comma at the end of each and then hit return, or they will all be combined into a single word--and thus be useless. Choose keywords that are relevant but not in your abstract or title. 

If your manuscript is accepted, you will be requested to send an image for your paper. This image will appear before your title in the table of contents. Either use an image of your own or upload one from the internet that is free and has no copyright restrictions.  

The criteria for authorship recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors are as follows:

      1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

       Conflicts of interest

In the context of the journal World Nutrition, a conflict of interest (CoI) is defined as "a situation that is present when there is a meaningful risk that a primary professional interest might be unduly influenced by incompatible interests."  Awareness of CoI's are important to authors and readers in maintaining the integrity of World Nutrition.

The existence of a CoI does not mean that someone is corrupt. They might not have allowed this CoI to influence what they think, how they do their research, or what they write. But the risk is there. The perception that this conflict MIGHT influence them is unavoidable.

A good deal of research does suggest that many researchers allow CoI to influence not only their judgement but also how they conduct, analyse, or report research. For example, published studies by drug companies routinely report higher efficacy for those drugs than studies funded by others. Being suspicious of authors with CoI is not the same as drawing conclusions about the integrity of any particular author, but it is important to be aware of the risks CoI pose. Thus, we ask all authors to provide a statement about potential conflicts of interest.

CoIs include relevant financial interests, activities, relationships, and affiliations, including, but not limited to, employment, funding and grants received or pending, consultancies, honoraria, membership in speakers' bureaus, stock ownership and options, expert testimony, royalties, and patents planned, pending, or issued. These disclosures should describe any potential conflicts of interest involving the work under consideration for publication (during the time involving the work, from initial conception and planning to present), any relevant financial activities outside the submitted work (over the 5 years prior to submission), and any other relationships or activities that readers could perceive to have influenced, or that give the appearance of potentially influencing what is written in the submitted work (based on all relationships that were present during the 5 years prior to submission).

Authors who are uncertain about what constitutes a relevant financial interest or relationship for an individual author or relevant support for the work being reported should err on the side of complete disclosure or contact the editor for clarification.

For all accepted manuscripts, summaries of the CoIs will be published in an Acknowledgement section of the article to ensure they are disclosed to readers.

World Nutrition will, at its discretion, consider publishing papers whose authors have only minor CoIs. However, if CoIs are judged to be so severe that the integrity of the article is in doubt, the manuscript may be rejected for that reason alone. Alternatively, the journal may publish a simultaneous commentary about that CoI and/or present an opposing point of view.

       Publication Ethics Policy

Research on human subjects or animals must include a statement that an institutional research board/ethics committee has approved your research in advance or waived it. Indicate the name of the IRB. Approval is not required for secondary analyses, project evaluations, or data obtained through routine project monitoring. 

World Nutrition follows COPE guidelines. Most relevant publication ethical issues are addressed above. The process for dealing with undisclosed conflicts of interest, if discovered, can be found here. Papers found to be based on plagiarism, serious errors, or falsification will be retracted. COPE Guidelines for this process are available here.

            Plagiarism

We take plagiarism seriously. We define it as copying a sentence or more from another author. We ask that you avoid copying too much even from your own previously published work. Our methods for dealing with it are illustrated here. If you use a large language model, including AI, to write any part of your paper, please indicate this in your methods section. 

          Declaration of generative AI

Authors must declare any use they make of generative AI in their writing upon submission of their paper. In using the technology, authors must maintain oversight and control. They should carefully review and edit the results, as AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that may be incorrect, incomplete, or biased. Authors are ultimately responsible and accountable for the contents of the work they submit. It is unlikely that any paper written largely by AI will be accepted for publication. This is particularly the case for non-research papers. 

          Policies for withdrawal of manuscript

Submitted manuscripts may be withdrawn by authors before peer review by writing to the editor. However, it is a breach of publication ethics to withdraw a submitted manuscript at any later stage in the publication process. This may result in sanctions and other actions by World Nutrition.

All work done during peer review, editing, and typesetting is the exclusive property of World Nutrition and may not be used in any other way besides publication in World Nutrition by authors without written permission from the editor of World Nutrition. 

Policies for error correction and retraction

World Nutrition operates the following policy for making corrections to its peer-reviewed content. Publishable amendments must be represented by a formal online notice because they affect the publication record and/or the scientific accuracy of published information. These fall into one of three categories: erratum, corrigendum or retraction.

Erratum: Notification of an important error made by the journal that affects the publication record or the scientific integrity of a paper, or the reputation of the authors or the journal.

Corrigendum: Notification of an important error made by the author(s) that affects the publication record or the scientific integrity of the paper, or the reputation of the authors or the journal.

Retraction: Notification of invalid results. All co-authors sign a retraction specifying the error, stating briefly how the conclusions are affected, and submit it for publication. In cases where one or more co-authors disagree, the publishing team will seek advice from independent referees and utilise the type of amendment that seems most appropriate, noting the dissenting author(s) in the text of the published version.

Other policies

Once their paper is published, authors are encouraged to offer a copy on ResearchGate and Academia, and to announce it by providing a link on Facebook, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, Bluesky, and other academic or social media websites to spread awareness of their work. There are no limitations to what you do with your published paper because you retain all copyrights. The only restriction is that you must indicate that it was first published in World Nutrition. For example, many authors wish to deposit a copy of their paper in an institutional or other repository of their choice. Our policy is that authors may deposit:

• Submitted version
• Accepted version (Author Accepted Manuscript)
• Published version (Version of Record)

 in an institutional or other repository of their choice without embargo. World Nutrition content is permanently archived at Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Texts, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine.