The First Formally Qualified Nutritionists in Malaysia, 1966
How Professor Jason S. T. Teoh and Dr Lim Ju Boo Carried the Seeds of Modern Nutrition from the University of London to Malaysia
By Lim Ju Boo
Some journeys begin with a passport.
Others begin with a seed.
More than sixty years ago, two young Malaysians travelled to Britain to study a subject that had scarcely become a recognised profession in their homeland: nutrition.
They returned in 1966 carrying far more than academic qualifications. They brought home the scientific knowledge, methods and philosophy of modern nutrition and helped plant the early seeds from which the profession of nutrition in Malaysia would eventually grow.
They were Professor Dr Jason S. T. Teoh, who later became Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, and Dr Lim Ju Boo, who joined the Institute for Medical Research (IMR), Kuala Lumpur.
Their story began in London.
When Nutrition Was Not Yet a Profession
It is difficult for young nutritionists today to imagine a time when nutrition was not yet firmly established as a professional discipline in Malaysia.
In the early 1960s, nutrition was still largely regarded as an adjunct to medicine, dietetics, food science and public health. There were few people in the country who had undergone specialised university training in nutrition itself.
The distinction between a nutritionist, dietitian, food scientist and health adviser was not always clearly understood.
Food manufacturing was also developing rapidly, but scientific food regulation was still in its formative years. Questions concerning food additives, preservatives, colouring substances, microbiological safety, food composition and health claims were increasingly demanding scientific expertise.
There was therefore a growing need for people who understood food and nutrition not simply as practical subjects, but as scientific disciplines based upon biochemistry, physiology, medicine, public health and research.
That was the environment into which the first generation of formally trained Malaysian nutritionists returned from Britain.
Queen Elizabeth College — Where the Seeds Were Planted
The story leads back to Queen Elizabeth College (QEC), University of London, which became one of the important centres in the development of academic nutrition.
Under Professor John Yudkin, nutrition was studied as a rigorous scientific discipline rather than merely as dietary advice.
Students were exposed to the biochemical, physiological and clinical foundations of human nutrition, nutritional deficiency diseases, public health, food science and research.
It was a remarkable development for its time.
Students from different parts of the world came to London to receive this new form of academic training and then returned to their own countries.
Among them were students from Southeast Asia, India, Norway, Canada and Nigeria.
The seeds were being scattered far beyond Britain.
The Historic Photograph — Queen Elizabeth College, 1965–1966
There is one photograph that has become particularly precious to me because it preserves a moment from the beginning of this journey.
The photograph is preserved in the King's College London Archives and records the postgraduate nutrition class at Queen Elizabeth College in 1965–66.
In the photograph, I am standing at the extreme left of the back row.
Seated in the centre of the front row is Professor John Yudkin, the distinguished Professor of Nutrition at Queen Elizabeth College and one of the important pioneers in establishing nutrition as an academic scientific discipline.
Immediately in front of me, in the second row, is Professor A. E. Bender, one of the distinguished nutrition scientists and teachers associated with Queen Elizabeth College.
At the time, we were simply a professor and his students.
Looking back more than sixty years later, the photograph represents something much greater.
It records a generation of young scientists standing at the threshold of a new era in nutrition—people who would eventually carry the knowledge acquired in Britain back to their own countries.
For me personally, it is a photograph of the beginning of my own journey in nutrition and, ultimately, my return to Malaysia in 1966.
The original photograph can be viewed in the King's College London Archives
The original archival photograph should remain unaltered. My position is identified here by description rather than by drawing a circle over the historical image.
The Two Malaysian Pioneers
While I was studying nutrition at Queen Elizabeth College under Professor John Yudkin, Dr Jason S. T. Teoh was pursuing postgraduate nutrition training at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) under Professor Benjamin Stanley Platt, another major figure in British nutrition science.
Thus, although we studied at different London institutions and under different professors, we were both receiving advanced academic training in nutrition within the University of London system.
We returned to Malaysia in 1966.
It was the beginning of an important chapter in Malaysian nutrition.
Professor Dr Jason S. T. Teoh
Professor Jason S. T. Teoh was a medical doctor who returned to the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya.
He subsequently rose to become Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya.
His contribution was particularly important because nutrition was then still closely connected with medicine, public health and the prevention of nutritional diseases.
Through medical education, nutrition could reach generations of doctors and health professionals.
Professor Teoh therefore became one of the important early Malaysians bringing formally trained nutrition knowledge into the medical education system.
Dr Lim Ju Boo at the Institute for Medical Research
I returned to Malaysia in 1966 and joined the Institute for Medical Research (IMR), Kuala Lumpur, at the invitation of Dr Chong Yoon Hin, who headed the Nutrition Division.
The IMR was already an institution with a strong scientific tradition and a group of dedicated researchers.
Dr Chong Yoon Hin was a distinguished biochemist with a PhD from the University of London. Mrs Ruth Lim, who had been seconded from Kuala Lumpur General Hospital, served as Nutrition Officer and brought valuable dietetic experience to the Division.
They had already contributed significantly to nutrition work in Malaysia.
My role was therefore not to begin nutrition research from nothing, but to bring specialised academic nutrition training into an institution where nutrition research was already developing.
I became the first IMR officer in 1968 with also an applied MSc degree in Food Quality Control from the University of Reading in England together with a formal postgraduate diploma specifically in nutrition from the University of London.
From Nutrition Research to Food Standards
My work at IMR eventually extended beyond nutritional research.
I became involved in technical work concerning food standards, serving on committees associated with the Standards and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia (SIRIM) on behalf of the Ministry of Health.
At that time, Malaysia was developing the scientific and regulatory framework needed to control the quality and safety of manufactured foods.
This required collaboration between nutritionists, chemists, microbiologists, medical scientists, food technologists and government authorities.
Nutrition was therefore beginning to expand beyond the study of nutrients and deficiency diseases.
It was becoming part of a much larger scientific system concerned with food quality, food safety, public health and national food regulation.
Helping to Establish the Nutrition Society of Malaysia
Another important development was the formation of the Nutrition Society of Malaysia.
Working with Dr Chong Yoon Hin, I was involved in helping establish the Society, which subsequently developed under successive councils and generations of nutrition professionals.
The Society provided a professional platform through which nutritionists could exchange scientific information, organise meetings and promote the advancement of nutrition science in Malaysia.
What had once been a small and emerging academic discipline was gradually becoming a recognised profession.
The Seeds Spread Across Southeast Asia
The story did not end in Malaysia.
The small postgraduate community at Queen Elizabeth College represented an international network of young nutrition scientists.
Dr Shim Kim Fah, from Singapore, was among the students who studied in this academic tradition. He subsequently obtained his PhD in Nutrition at Queen Elizabeth College and became a professor in Singapore.
A young Thai woman, the daughter of the Thai Ambassador to the United Kingdom, was also among the postgraduate students and subsequently returned to Thailand.
Students from India, Norway, Canada, Nigeria and other countries similarly carried their knowledge home.
Thus the influence of the London nutrition programmes extended far beyond Britain.
The seeds travelled.
From Two Students to a National Profession
When Professor Jason Teoh and I returned to Malaysia in 1966, neither of us could have known how far the discipline would eventually develop.
There were no large departments of nutrition comparable with those that exist today.
There was no large community of university-trained nutritionists.
There was little public understanding of nutrition as an independent scientific profession.
Yet the foundations were being laid.
One person taught.
Another conducted research.
Another developed food standards.
Another educated doctors.
Another organised professional activities.
Gradually, these separate efforts became part of something much larger.
That is how scientific disciplines are born—not overnight, but through the accumulated work of many people over many years.
A Small Photograph, a Large History
When I look today at the old photograph from Queen Elizabeth College, I see much more than my younger self standing at the extreme left of the back row.
I see Professor John Yudkin sitting in the centre of the front row.
I see Professor A. E. Bender immediately in front of me.
I see fellow postgraduate students from different countries.
And I see a generation about to return home carrying knowledge that had been developed in Britain.
We did not know then what the future would bring.
We were simply students studying nutrition.
But history sometimes begins quietly.
A classroom.
A teacher.
A group of students.
A qualification.
And then a journey home.
Carrying the Seeds Across Generations
Looking back more than six decades later, I realise that the journey from London was never simply about obtaining a diploma.
It was about carrying seeds.
Seeds of scientific thinking.
Seeds of evidence-based nutrition.
Seeds of research.
Seeds of professional education.
Seeds of food standards and public health.
Those seeds were carried from Britain to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and many other countries.
They were planted by different people in different institutions.
And over the decades, they grew into the profession of nutrition that exists today.
The young man standing at the extreme left of that old photograph could never have imagined that, sixty years later, he would still be writing about it.
But perhaps that is the nature of science.
A scientist plants a seed of knowledge without knowing how far its roots will travel or how many generations will eventually live beneath its shade.
A Historical Record for Future Generations
This article is therefore not intended merely as a recollection of my own career.
It is a small historical record of the early development of academic nutrition in Malaysia.
The two Malaysian pioneers who returned from Britain in 1966 were:
Professor Dr Jason S. T. Teoh
· Medical doctor
· Advanced nutrition training at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
· Subsequently Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya
· Important early contributor to the development of nutrition within Malaysian medical education
Dr Lim Ju Boo
· Postgraduate nutrition student at Queen Elizabeth College, University of London, 1965–66
· Returned to Malaysia in 1966
· Joined the Institute for Medical Research, Kuala Lumpur
· Involved in nutrition research and food-standard development
· Served on pioneering SIRIM technical committees concerning food standards
· Involved in the establishment of the Nutrition Society of Malaysia
· Participated in collaborative nutrition work involving the Ministry of Health, IMR and WHO
Their paths were different.
But the destination was the same:
to bring modern scientific nutrition home to Malaysia.
Epilogue — The Seeds Are Still Growing
The Queen Elizabeth College photograph belongs to another era.
The buildings have changed.
The students have grown old.
Some are no longer with us.
But the knowledge continues.
Universities continue to teach nutrition.
Researchers continue to investigate food and health.
Hospitals continue to employ nutrition professionals.
Public-health programmes continue to promote better nutrition.
Food industries continue to depend upon scientific standards.
And young nutritionists continue the work begun by generations before them.
That is perhaps the greatest legacy of all.
The people in that photograph have passed through time, but the seeds they carried have not.
They continue to grow.
And that is the story of how a small group of students at Queen Elizabeth College helped carry the seeds of modern nutrition across the world—and how two of them brought those seeds home to Malaysia.
Dr Lim Ju Boo
Formerly, Institute for Medical Research, Kuala Lumpur
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