F2F

Ursula Arens RD

Ursula meets:

JACK WINKLER

Nutrition policy expert Food activist

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.

Our F2F interviews feature people who influence nutrition policies and practices in the UK.

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 interesting how colour descriptions often linked to foods?

Jack has the slightest awk to his tawk. “Yes, I am a New Yorker,” he admits. At the age of 17 he was selected as an exchange student to attend Highgate School in London for a year. He felt welcomed and inspired, and the seeds of his Anglophilia were planted.

He studied Sociology at the Stanford 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 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

He is currently a member of the charity Food and Behaviour Research, supporting their ‘eat more fish’ messages. “If you look in the cupboard, you will see high-dose omega-3 supplements,” he said.

Public Health England reported measly 3% reductions contrasting with 20% targets. My libertarian outlook supports choice channelling but leaving chocolate to be chocolate; Jack more strongly supports changing the food, and not so much the daily choices. “The targets set for foods are too much too fast. But, for example, there are some great low-sugar chocolates now available.”

His former student and close friend, Maggie Sanderson, was the dietetic and nutrition course leader at London Metropolitan University. Her unfortunate death in 2003 led to a staff crisis and Jack took over the food policy lectures. He then became enmeshed into the dietetic curriculum and also became friends with a fellow academic at the University (Prof Michael Crawford: see F2F interview in NHD issue 152), who opened up Jack’s interest in long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. He describes low dietary intakes of omega-3 as the “most hidden of hidden hungers”.

We discuss the accuracy of dietary survey data. These are known to be skewed, but I suggest data is fuzzy because of the nature of not being able to remember what you ate yesterday. Or perhaps because the act of recording dietary intakes can result in changed and edited choices. “Perhaps you think I am mean-spirited, but as a sociologist I tend to the view that people lie,” said Jack. He describes, for example, the huge divergence in reports of soft drink consumption between NDNS data and industry sales data. People buying drinks but not consuming drinks seems unlikely, and wastage for this product group was reported as being lower than for fresh foods.

Jack sets out three Winkler wisdoms. Firstly, nutrition labelling of foods does not work to drive change in food choices; rather, unobtrusive product reformulations should be promoted to adjust particular nutrient contents. Secondly, more should be done to support pricing decisions to align with healthier choice judgements made by nutritionists. Jack felt that many poor diet choices were explained largely by cost pressures on tight budget consumers. Thirdly, greater steer within agricultural support systems should be linked to dietary targets. Farmers should be encouraged to produce the foods that the health experts want populations to eat more of (not less of – sugar beet subsidies being an example).

Jack has retired from academic duties, but is still active in debates and discussions on food policy and was, (until COVID shutdowns) always in the room at food debate forums. He is currently a member of the charity Food and Behaviour Research, supporting their ‘eat more fish’ messages. “If you look in the cupboard, you will see high-dose omega-3 supplements,” he said. I ask Jack about his food policy hero. “Jack,” said Jack (Jack Drummond, who helped devise UK food policy during World War 2).

Jack had emphasised how much he had wanted to leave New York. But New York has not left him. And that is a good thing. He may lack the cool and calm of an English-born, but has the smarts and hearts of people from that great American city.