Association for the Study of Obesity

The Association for the Study of Obesity (ASO) was founded in 1967 and according to its website is the "UK's foremost organisation dedicated to the understanding and treatment of obesity."

The ASO has three key objectives:

• To promote professional awareness of obesity and its impact on health.
• To educate and disseminate recent research on the causes, consequences, treatment, and prevention of obesity
• To prioritise obesity and provide opinion leadership in the UK.

The Association is affiliated to the European and International Associations for the Study of Obesity and organised the lst International Congress on Obesity, held in London in 1974 and the 2nd European Congress on Obesity, held in Oxford in 1989. The Association was also the founding body of the highly respected International Journal of Obesity.

The ASO exists to provide training to health professionals and others involved in the prevention and treatment of obesity and to offer an ongoing forum for the sharing of scientific expertise and clinical practice through the provision of high quality scientific and educational meetings. The ASO also runs ORIC, the Obesity Resource and Information Centre, as a point of contact for others interested in obesity, especially the media, who are seeking independent and authoritative information on obesity.

Finances

The ASO is both a charity (number 1100648), and a company limited by guarantee (number 04796449). The annual accounts for 2006 show total income of £115,373 of which £70,040 was from sponshorship. The main sponsors named in the accounts are: Roche, Abbot Sanofi-Aventis, Unilever.

Sponsors

Their sponsors in 2007 were

• Cambridge Health Plan
• GlaxoSmithKline
• Kellogg
• LighterLife
• Masterfoods
• Roche
• Rosemary Conley
• Sanofi-Aventis
• seca
• Slimfast
• Slimming World
• Tanita UK Ltd
• Weight Watchers

People

• CHAIR: Professor John Wilding DM FRCP

He is currently Chair of the UK Association for the Study of Obesity and a UK representative on the International Association for the Study of Obesity committee.

• DEPUTY CHAIR: Professor Carolyn Summerbell PhD, SRD

Professor of Human Nutrition and Assistant Dean (Research) within the School of Health and Social Care at Teesside University, Middlesbrough. Principal Investigator for the NICE Public Health Collaborating Centre on Obesity based at Teesside. Member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Obesity and is a member of the WHO Expert Panel on Childhood Obesity.

• TREASURER: Dr John MacKean

Part time GP. Also works on an independent basis conducting health screening for BUPA and medico-legal work.

• Dr Jason Halford

He has been involved in the behavioural assessment of potential anti-obesity drugs in pre-clinical models and humans ever since, including recent work on Rimonabant. More recently, he has focused on the effects of branding and food promotion on children’s food preferences and diet. Currently a reader in appetite and obesity at the University of Liverpool and Director of the Human Ingestive Behaviour laboratory.

• Jennifer Hester BSc

• Professor Marion Hetherington

Caledonian Futures Professor of Biopsychology at Glasgow Caledonian University. She leads a small, research active group in the Department of Psychology exploring appetite regulation across the lifespan. Her interest in obesity developed from a BBSRC-funded project investigating genetic and behavioural markers of the pre-obese phenotype in children. Member of the Nutrition Society, the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB). Memeber of the editorial boards of the British Journal of Nutrition and the British Journal of Health Psychology.

• Susan Jebb PhD, SRD

Head of Nutrition and Health at the Medical Research Council Human Nutrition Research centre (HNR) in Cambridge. Head of the Nutrition Communication group at HNR and works extensively with government, industry, health professionals, the media and consumer groups to translate nutrition science into policy and practice. Member of the Nutrition Society, the British Dietetic Association and The American Institute of Nutrition.

Amelia Lake RD PHNutr PhD

Dr Amelia Lake is a dietitian and public health nutritionist with the Human Nutrition Research Centre at Newcastle University. Research and clinical practice have had a synergistic relationship in Amelia’s career.

Amelia’s broad research interests include exploring the obesogenic environment, behaviour change and food choice. She is currently holder of a Department of Health Post-doctoral Fellowship and is working on a study called ‘Combating the obesogenic environment’. Amelia work involves collaborating with a multi-disciplinary team including urban designers and geographers to examine how the environment interacts with physical activity and food behaviour in young people.

Amelia received her degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics from Glasgow Caledonian University and worked in the NHS before taking up a research post with Newcastle University. At Newcastle she completed a PhD which investigated longitudinal dietary change and factors influencing dietary change from adolescence to adulthood.

In the past, Amelia has been an active member of the British Dietetic Association’s Research Committee and their Quality and Performance indicators committee. Amelia is also a member of the Nutrition Society.

Amelia has extensive experience of working with non-specialist audiences as well as academics, and has produced various training programmes and related material. Amelia is a registered expert with the Science Media Centre, British Dietetic Association and Newcastle University Press Office, and is regularly contacted by the media to give comments about topical health stories.

Dr Kris Matyka

Krystyna Matyka joined the ASO Committee in 2004 as a paediatric representative. She works as a Senior Lecturer in Paediatrics at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire and at Warwick University. She has an interest in childhood diabetes and also runs a weight management service for obese children. Her main research interests are physical activity and cardiovascular risk in children as well as hypoglycaemia in childhood diabetes. Krystyna is a member of the Professional Advisory Council of Diabetes UK and has done work for NICE as well as being a member of a group examining obesity research in childhood led by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Vidya Mohamed-Ali PhD

Dr Vidya Mohamed-Ali is a Senior Lecturer/Group Leader of the Adipokines and Metabolism Research Group at the Department of Medicine, University College London. Since 1995 she has been working specifically on adipose tissue derived signals. In collaboration with Dr Simon W Coppack, they were the first to show in vivo release of IL-6 and leptin from human adipose tissue. Research has focused on the investigation of the secretory functions of the adipocyte, with specific reference to the adipokines (adipose tissue-derived cytokines); the mechanisms of adipose cytokine release and the consequences of chronic production of cytokines by the tissue using both in vitro (in cell and organ cultures) and in vivo (in a diet-induced obese human volunteers and mouse) models.

Her group is funded by grants from the Wellcome Trust, British Heart Foundation and an EC Sixth Framework Programme Integrated Project grant on health benefits of exercise: identification of genes and signalling pathways involved in effects of exercise on insulin resistance, obesity and the metabolic syndrome (EXGENESIS).

Vidya holds a degree in biological sciences from the University of Surrey, a Masters in immunology from Brunel University and her PhD from UCL. Vidya joined the ASO committee in 2004 and is also member of the American Endocrine Society and American Diabetes Association.

Denise Robertson PhD BSc (Hons) RNutr

Denise is a lecturer in Nutritional Physiology at the University of Surrey, prior to which she spent 7 years as a researcher at the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, University of Oxford. Her research interests lie in the metabolic causes and consequences related to obesity and insulin resistance.

Denise is a recently appointed ASO committee member and has recently completed a term on the Nutrition Society Council.

She graduated from Liverpool University before completing her PhD in Clinical Medical Sciences at the University of Newcastle.

Dr Matt Sabin MRCPCH MB BS (Hons) BSc (Hons)

Having completed a medical degree at the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals in London, Matthew undertook general professional training in Paediatrics and obtained Membership of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in July 2000. He has always had a strong research interest and at present is a Diabetes UK Clinical Training Fellow in Paediatric Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism in Bristol where he is completing a PhD. His current research has involved the development of a large multidisciplinary paediatric obesity service as well as undertaking laboratory investigations into fat and muscle metabolism. He has provided written reviews on childhood obesity alongside publishing original research papers and presenting at international meetings. He has also edited Best Practice Guidelines on Childhood. Simon Williams PhD MA BA (Hons)

Simon is a Principal Lecturer in Health and Exercise Science at the University of Glamorgan in South Wales. After initially training in exercise physiology, Simon became interested in the assessment of body composition and the health consequences of obesity. Within the University, Simon is the course leader of an MSc in Health and Exercise Science and teaches metabolism and endocrinology, body composition assessment and ‘obesity science’ to undergraduate and postgraduate students. Every year, Simon also co-ordinates and supervises the work of several students who conduct research into a variety of obesity-related topics. After completing a PhD investigating the association between obesity and coronary artery disease in men, Simon has continued work in this area, including the use of computerised tomography imaging to assess adipose tissue distribution. His other main interests include the causes, consequences and epidemiology of obesity and the metabolic syndrome in children and adults and the effect of exercise training on abdominal obesity and its associated factors. Simon is also engaged in several initiatives aimed at educating various groups of people (eg. adults with mental illness, patients with type 2 diabetes, children and families affected by inherited high cholesterol levels) about the health risks of obesity and the importance of physical activity. Simon is also a member of Diabetes UK and the British Association for Sport and Exercise Science. ASO STAFF

ADMINISTRATOR: Mrs Chris Hawkins MBE Having held this position since 1972, Chris is responsible for the day to day organisation and running of the office including conference organisation, maintenance of the membership database and website. In addition to this role, she spent several years teaching in Adult Education and also acts as Administrative Officer for both Dietitians Working in Obesity Management (DOM UK) and Self Employed Nutritionists’ Support and Enlightenment Group (SENSE). EXTERNAL AFFAIRS OFFICER: Beckie Lang PhD BSc (Hons) PGDip RPHNutr

Beckie Lang runs the Obesity Information Centre on behalf of the Association (oric@aso.org.uk or 07767 365718). She is also responsible for managing the ASO portfolio of training. Beckie also holds a part time post as a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Teesside in Middlesbrough. Her particular areas of interest are evaluation of obesity services within primary care, and school based interventions for the prevention of obesity. Beckie also writes on obesity and children’s nutrition for a range of professional and consumer press. Beckie holds an honours degree in food and human nutrition form the University of Newcastle, and a PhD from the University of Sheffield. She has also completed a postgraduate course in science communication with Birkbeck College, University of London. Beckie has been a member of the ASO for over 10 years and is also a member of the Nutrition Society and the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

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Contact Details

• Address : ASO, 20 Brook Meadow Close, Woodford Green,Essex IG8 9NR
• Tel: 020 8503 2042
• Website:www.aso.org.uk