Boyd Swinburn is a Professor of Population Nutrition and Global Health in the School of Population Health, University of Auckland. Originally trained as an Endocrinologist he is now an eminent public health physician conducting research on community and policy actions to prevent childhood and adolescent obesity, and reduce what he has coined the ‘obesogenic’ food environment.

Boyd is Co-Chair of World Obesity Federation's Policy & Prevention section and Co-Chair of the Lancet Commission on Obesity. He also established the World Health Organisation's first Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention, at Deakin University. We take a deep dive with Boyd as he discusses the problems with our current food system and the changes needed in order to deliver on human and environmental health, as well as economic prosperity. Boyd also calls on us to reframe the role of the individual when it comes to obesity.

In this episode we discuss:
• Boyd’s transition from Endocrinology to Public Health Advocacy
• Obesity and the ‘obesogenic’ Food Environment
• The need for policy change when dealing with the harmful products that dominate our health environment; tobacco, alcohol and junk food
• Government’s role in curbing the detrimental marketing of junk food to children
• The potential benefits of a sugary drinks tax
• The policy inertia regarding nutrition - despite the evidence, and what we can do about it
• The heavy environmental impact of our current food system and the need for a social movement to change this
• The necessity of sustainable dietary guidelines and why we don’t yet have them; the strong lobby forces that unfortunately have a seat at the table
• The big-ticket items we need to address regarding policies on food
• And so much more – this is one fascinating chat!

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