Susan Ann Jebb (born 24 August 1964) is Chair of the United Kingdom's

Food Standards Agency The Food Standards Agency is a non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for protecting public health in relation to food in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is led by a board appoin ...

and Professor of Diet and Population Health at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences,

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. She is also a senior research fellow at Jesus College.

Education

Jebb earned her undergraduate degree in nutrition from the

University of Surrey The University of Surrey is a public research university in Guildford, Surrey, England. The university received its Royal Charter, royal charter in 1966, along with a Plate glass university, number of other institutions following recommendations ...

in 1986, qualifying as a state registered dietitian before completing a PhD at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

in 1990, which investigated methods of measuring body composition.

Career

At the Dunn Clinical Nutrition Centre in the early 1990s, she worked with Sally Poppitt, where she became head of obesity research She took up her current professorship at Oxford in 2013. In 1997 she said 'alcohol in moderation can be good for you, but it must be in moderation'. In 2015, she was criticised in an investigation by the ''

British Medical Journal ''The BMJ'' is a fortnightly peer-reviewed medical journal, published by BMJ Publishing Group Ltd, which in turn is wholly-owned by the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world ...

'' for her closeness to the sugar industry. Jebb's research has suggested that a referral to commercial weight management weight loss programmes delivered in the community may be a cost-effective way to treat obesity in primary care. Her more recent work has studied how our perception of portion size as normal or smaller than normal can affect the amount of food we eat, and how shoppers can be influenced to choose decreased salt alternatives at the grocery store. Jebb is a member of

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Health Commission. In January 2023, her comments were the subject of some media attention after she appeared to compare bringing cake into the workplace to

passive smoking Passive smoking is the inhalation of tobacco smoke, called passive smoke, secondhand smoke (SHS) or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), by individuals other than the active Tobacco smoking, smoker. It occurs when tobacco smoke diffuses into the ...

Personal life

When at Cambridge, she lived in Steeple Morden, near

Royston, Hertfordshire Royston is a town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the North Hertfordshire, District of North Hertfordshire and county of Hertfordshire in England. It is situated on the Prime meridian (Greenwich), Greenwich Meridian, which brush ...

and later in

Great Shelford Great Shelford is a village located approximately to the south of Cambridge, in Cambridgeshire, in eastern England. In 1850 Great Shelford parish contained bisected by the River Cam. The population in 1841 was 803 people. By 2001, this had g ...

; she now lives in

Shropshire Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...

Awards and honors

Early on in her career, Susan Jebb was awarded the ASO's (the association for the study of obesity) and EASO 's (European association for the study of obesity) ‘Young Investigator’ award. In 2008, she was awarded an OBE for services to public health. Susan Jebb has won the international 2015 John Maddox Prize for courage in promoting science and evidence on a matter of public interest. In 2018, she was appointed Fellow of the Medical Academy of Sciences.

Selected publications

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jebb, Susan Living people 1964 births British nutritionists Food policy in the United Kingdom Obesity in the United Kingdom Officers of the Order of the British Empire People from Ellesmere, Shropshire People from South Cambridgeshire District Fellows of Jesus College, Oxford Alumni of the University of Surrey Alumni of the University of Cambridge Medical scholars of the University of Oxford