Dr Alison Tedstone is National Director with responsibility of diet, nutrition and obesity in the Health and Wellbeing Directorate of Public Health England (PHE). Her teams work areas include the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, nutrient composition of foods, scientific advice on nutrition (including the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition), and messaging on nutrition and health issues. They also coordinate a cross PHE a programme of work aimed at tackling the nations obesity problem which supports national and local level delivery, including actions aimed at improving systems leadership and addressing the environmental causes obesity.
Alison transferred with the other nutrition colleagues from the Department of Health in April 2013 and before that from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in 2010. Before joining the FSA, in 2001, she was an academic at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She has a BSc and PhD from London University. She completed post doctorate research in Oxford. She is on the UK Voluntary Register of Nutritionists held by the Association for Nutrition as a Registered Nutritionist (public health) and as a Fellow.
As Public Health England’s chief nutritionist, I’m often asked what we’re doing about confusing messages in the media about nutrition, which lead to an incorrect assumption that official advice is always changing.
As part of our sugar reduction programme we’ve published new guidelines for the food industry demonstrating how they can remove 20% of the sugar in nine categories of food which contribute the most to children’s intakes.
In late 2015 I wrote about a new programme that aims to explore local systems and design new approaches to prevent and tackle obesity.
As 2016 draws to a close it’s a good time to round up some recent developments in the battle against childhood obesity.
1.The human cost of obesity is huge We can’t ignore the harm obesity causes. Very overweight children face bullying, low self-esteem and school absence. And we know that very overweight children are more likely to become overweight adults so it’s …
We know overweight and obesity levels are higher in children from poorer neighbourhoods, and it’s concerning to see new analysis which shows that there are more fast food outlets in many of these deprived areas on average. The chart below …
Many readers of this blog will be well aware of the challenge that our obesity epidemic poses - the damaging impact on our health and our health services is clear. But just identifying the scale of the problem will only …
You may have seen stories in the media recently on fats in our diet; saturated, unsaturated and trans to be precise - with studies offering new information on what we can and can’t eat and how much is ok. One …
The amount of sugar we (and our children) consume has been a hot topic for years, but this week we reached a crucial point in the debate following the publication of new recommendations by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition …
Many of us eat over 90g of red and processed meat a day – we should be moving that down towards the population average of 70g a day. Meanwhile only 30% of us are meeting the 5-a-day recommendation for fruit …
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