NHD Issue 145 Face to Face

F2F

FACE TO FACE Ursula meets: JENNY ROSBOROUGH Head of Nutrition at Jamie Oliver Limited Public health nutrition campaigner Health behaviour changer

Jenny is a sensible SENSE nutritionist (www.sense-nutrition.org.uk). We agree that SENSE is a great network of contacts to recalibrate the more extreme and bizarre streams of nutrition debate flowing through social media channels.

“Nutritionists who post their every perfect meal do need to be careful. It has potential to make some people feel inadequate, which is not a helpful way to get normal people motivated to improve their diets,” said Jenny. As a never-poster of my imperfect meals, I was in complete agreement.

Her initial degree was in Sports Science and English at Loughborough University. Some anxiety of “what career?” led her to do the Masters Nutrition degree at Kings College, London. “It was really intense, but really worth it,” she enthused. After qualification in 2007, she became a personal trainer at a Virgin Active gym. During this time, one of the gym customers asked if she was available to help with the nutrition sections of a health programme for children with obesity. Saying yes, was the “best thing” she could have done, as it opened up the many opportunities she then enjoyed with the MEND programme (Mind, Exercise, Nutrition . . . Do it).

Initially, Jenny helped to deliver the MEND programme to local groups around the UK. Shortly after, she moved to the MEND head office and developed the family guidance programme for children aged five to seven years (to complete the guidance already in place

Ursula meets amazing people who influence nutrition policies and practices in the UK. for children two to four and seven to 13 years.) “It was such a great scheme and helped to support the national childhood measurement programme. It was a great frustration for many parents to be told their child had obesity, but not to be given any support,” said Jenny.

In 2013, the MEND scheme faced severe challenges due to changes in the funding of public health programmes.

The UK section rights were sold to Mytime Active, and the US and Canadian rights were sold to Healthy Weight Partnership Inc. Jenny joined the latter and for two years supported paediatric healthy lifestyle groups in North America. It must have been a real challenge for a UK nutritionist, I suggested. “Yes, there are differences between American and British food cultures. But there were also large differences between US cities.

Whilst lifestyle changes, like walking to school, were possible in Chicago, it was completely impossible for children to walk to school in many towns in Texas, for example.” (Too hot and no safe pedestrian routes.) ‘Soul food Sundays’ – weekly community meals after church on Sundays – were also a new cultural experience for Jenny.

Then a London-based job advertisement allowed Jenny to escape airmiles and jet-lag. Action on Salt, a health charity based at Queen Mary University in London, had been instrumental in instigating the reformulation of many foods by incremental reductions in salt content. They now wanted to expand their activities to use the same

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.

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PUBLIC HEALTH contacts and concepts to support sugar reductions. In 2015, free sugars became the most discussed nutrient, because the UK Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) released their report on carbohydrates, recommending a halving of maximum sugar intakes from 10% to 5% dietary energy. “The job was about relationship building. With food companies, health organisations and campaigners, media and government,” said Jenny. The topic was sugars, but the real theme was childhood obesity. The media were keen to support descriptions of the wide variance of the sugar content of different foods and brands, and the government developed firmer and stronger pressures for reductions in sugars in most daily-choice foods. Taxation and targets have provided strong influence in supporting reformulation and the next few years will reveal to what degree these interventions have resulted in improving children’s diets.

Jenny enjoyed the variety of challenges she faced as a nutrition campaigner. “I learnt that success is progress rather than perfection.”

But there were differences between salt and sugars reformulation. The latter can be more difficult because sugars provide bulk for many products and because sweet foods are often associated with caring, comfort and celebration.

Jenny feels that much more needs to be done to communicate less frequency and smaller portions for sweet foods, especially where reformulation is difficult. So many occasional treat foods have become daily snacks; and we both ponder the delicate issue of critiquing

Jenny giving a talk for Action on Sugar in 2016

Bake Off enthusiasts who are all jolly and kind and funny (and promote consumption of huge amounts of sugar).

Then her head was hunted. Jamie Oliver needed a Head of Nutrition and in 2018, Jenny joined the company. She has three nutrition colleagues and together they work across the restaurants, in product development, recipe book checking, campaigns, media contacts and relationships with governments, industry and health groups. Does she meet the boss daily, or weekly, or monthly? I asked. “He is there most days. He is very involved in all aspects and decisions and he is just like he appears on TV. He is always so busy: I don’t know how he does it,” said Jenny.

A new consultancy role she has just accepted is as advisor to Transport for London, to advise on their ‘no foods high in salt, sugars, or saturates’ advertising policy.

Does Jenny have the most exciting nutritionist job in the UK? I think so. I know that she really enjoys her career as a campaigning nutritionist.

And her advice to younger nutritionists? Get paid to do the thing you love to do.

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www.NHDmag.com June/July 2019 - Issue 145