Susan Ann Jebb (born 24 August 1964) is Chair of the United Kingdom's Food Standards Agency and Professor of Diet and Population Health at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford. She is also a senior research fellow at Jesus College.
Education She is the eldest daughter of Roy Parkinson of Cheadle Hulme.Times Saturday September 9 1989, page 12
Jebb earned her undergraduate degree in nutrition from the University of Surrey in 1986, qualifying as a state registered dietitian before completing a PhD at the University of Cambridge 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 researchCambridge Daily News Thursday 29 April 1993, page 39 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'.Shropshire Star Tuesday 2 September 1997, page 8 In 2015, she was criticised in an investigation by the British Medical Journal 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 The Times 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.
Personal life When at Cambridge, she lived in Steeple Morden, near Royston, Hertfordshire and later in Great Shelford; she now lives in Shropshire.Cambridge Daily News Wednesday 11 May 1994, page 29
Her husband is the son of Lionel Jebb and Corinna Hawkesworth, with sister Sophie and brother Andrew. Her husband, born in 1961, grew up at Dudleston Grange in Shropshire.Times Thursday October 27 1966, page 2
Her husband's mother was the daughter of a Shrewsbury School teacher,Times Thursday October 1 1959, page 12The Tatler Wednesday 2 December 1959, page 79 and her husband's father attended Shrewsbury School.Shrewsbury Chronicle Friday 20 March 1992, page 44 Her husband's father was High Sheriff of Shropshire from 1991-92,Shropshire Star Thursday 21 March 1991, page 23 and Chairman of the Governors of Adcote School in the 1990s.Shrewsbury Chronicle Thursday 27 February 1997, page 8 Her husband is a relative of novelist Minette Walters.Shropshire Star Friday 20 October 2000, page 24
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
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