The impact of England’s calorie labelling policy on individuals with eating disorders

UCL Minds

About the Lecture: In 2022 the government introduced the out-of-home calorie labelling policy in England to help people make informed nutritional decisions as part of a broader strategy to reduce rates of obesity. However, little is known about how this policy impacts people’s mental health, especially those with lived experience of eating disorders. This lecture will explore why the policy might be harmful for people with lived experience of eating disorders, what the current evidence says, and potential impacts for public policy. In particular, we will discuss whether public health policies can be inclusive of both obesity prevention and eating disorder prevention. About the speaker: Nora Trompeter is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Child Health. Nora has a background in developmental psychology and completed her PhD in 2022 at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Her research is focused on identifying social and emotional risk factors for the development of eating disorder symptoms in adolescents. Ivonne Derks is Research Fellow at the Research Department of Behavioural Sciences and Health. She has a background in Health Sciences, Psychology and Clinical Epidemiology, and completed her PhD (2019) at Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Ivonne’s research is focussed on the development of eating disorder symptoms in adolescence and identifying shared risk factors between obesity and eating disorders.