F2F
FACE TO FACE Ursula meets: JACK WINKLER Nutrition policy expert Food activist Ursula Arens RD
Emeritus Professor, London Metropolitan University
Ursula has a degree in dietetics and currently works as a freelance writer in Nutrition and Dietetics She enjoys the gifts of Aspergers.
I have always known Jack to be a colourful character. But I didn’t realise that this was literally true. His saffron jumper perfectly matched his saffron kitchen cupboards, and we discussed colour terminology. When did ‘apricot’ become ‘mango’ become ‘turmeric’ become ‘saffron’? And wasn’t it Our F2F interesting how colour descriptions often linked to foods? interviews Jack has the slightest awk to his feature people tawk. “Yes, I am a New Yorker,” he who influence admits. At the age of 17 he was selected as an exchange student to attend nutrition Highgate School in London for a year. policies He felt welcomed and inspired, and the and practices seeds of his Anglophilia were planted. He studied Sociology at the Stanford in the UK. University, California. “I wanted to leave New York, and California was the most distant spot,” he said. He jumped into journalism, writing mainly about the oil business. His writing career started in New York and Washington DC, but he also lived in Hamburg and Berlin in Germany, and later enjoyed a few years in Moscow. He decided to go back into education and did a postgraduate degree at the London School of Economics. “And I have lived in the UK ever since.” His academic life began at the University of Kent, studying decision making by company directors, and ‘corporatism’. Thatcherism challenged corporatism by lifting the interests of individuals and small groups, so it was time to move on. To Cranfield 48
www.NHDmag.com February 2021 - Issue 160
University, where Jack became the academic supporting a range of organisational management projects by middle-tier practitioners. One of his students was dietitian, Maggie Sanderson. Her project was on food policy in relation to sugars in the diet, and Jack became woven into the debates. “The NACNE report had just been issued (1983) and nutrition became a big issue,” said Jack. There was a sudden moment when Jack decided that food and nutrition policy would be the issue he wanted to research in depth. His Cranfield career increasingly involved academic support for students with nutrition backgrounds. But Jack also made links with nutrition academics and campaigners, and he became most interested in dietary sugar reduction. “I joined the group called Action and Information on Sugars. We had lots of contacts with media and academics to support less sugar consumption, and we won a significant legal case against a company marketing drinks to very young children.” Jack is still a consultant to Action on Sugars, now based at Queen Mary University. So, he must be pleased with the UK Government sugar-based tax on soft drinks, I ask. “Yes, it has been a great success. About 85% of soft drinks on sale in the UK are now no or low sugar,” clarified Jack. But sugar reduction in other foods is much more difficult and has had less success. Recent data from
