F2F
FACE TO FACE
Director: Child-nutrition.co.uk Ltd
Ursula meets amazing people who influence nutrition policies and practices in the UK.
Judy grew up in New Zealand, but moved to Sydney, Australia to complete her higher education. She won a scholarship and completed a BSc in biochemistry and pharmacology, and then a post-graduate diploma in Nutrition and Dietetics. During her student holidays, and for the first year after graduation, she worked at the Prince Henry Hospital in Sydney. “It was a really sprawling hospital terrain, but it was on a cliff overlooking a beach, so offered great ocean views,” said Judy. She then moved to Europe and had two nutrition research jobs, firstly, to Bordeaux in France, following her husband’s career move to study oenology (the science of wine production), where she put on a white coat and worked in a laboratory studying insulin and pancreatic function. Later, at the Institute for Child Health in London, she worked on balance studies in infants, researching trace element metabolism. There was never a problem with her Australian dietetic qualifications; Judy has been UK based ever since her arrival in the late seventies. She weaved in and out of a wide variety of London hospital posts with the increasing theme of paediatrics. “I particularly enjoy working with young children and their parents, because dietetic guidance is often pivotal to the improvement of a medical condition and parents are usually very keen to follow advice,” said
Judy. She smiled when I questioned whether this was not the case for other dietetic encounters. She held one of the first specialist posts looking after infants and children who were HIV+ and described the challenges of previous drug regimens, which induced anorexia and often required nutrition support measures. One mother was most anxious about the stigma of enteral feeding for her child, but was reassured when Judy set out the wide variety of medical diagnoses (other than HIV+) that benefited from nutrition support. During a budget and staffing review of this hospital job, she was informed that the post of paediatric dietitian was counted as nonessential. Although there was never a confirmation of redundancy, she felt the insult of her post being marked as ‘not needed’, so decided to apply for a community nutrition post. In addition to supporting GP clinics and working with schools and other groups, she became increasingly involved in freelance projects, as well as writing. She claims early-adopter status for dietitian-with-a-website, setting up a consultancy to support individuals seeking advice on child nutrition issues. Other than medically complex conditions, themes are often eating behaviour difficulties, such as fussy or disordered eating. “It is great to be able to use my kitchen with children, to show and try foods, or measure out sample quantities. My usual
Ursula meets: JUDY MORE Government consultant on infant/child nutrition BDA Paediatric Group – past Chairman Ursula Arens Writer; Nutrition & Dietetics Ursula has a degree in dietetics, and currently works as a freelance nutrition writer. She has been a columnist on nutrition for more than 30 years.
42
www.NHDmag.com April 2019 - Issue 143