When Barbara was a young woman she had an accident that aged her body ahead of her biological years. She accepted, like many others that disability and disease is a consequence of ageing. It was at the beginning of her doctoral research into a healthy ageing diet that she realised that we have the ability to influence the ageing process, but in order to live well for longer we need to make positive changes before we get old. It’s easy to be complacent and even unconsciously incompetent about ageing, but in the words of Betty Frieden “Ageing is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.” Barbara invites you to join me on a journey of positive ageing. Barbara elevates the food system in pursuit of safe, nutritious and sustainable food for everyone. Her work delivers food safety in food supply chains and nutrition strategy for businesses, alongside leadership and educational roles in her public engagement activities. Prior to working as a consultant, Barbara worked in the Ugandan agri-business sector, before spending fourteen years in technical roles within the European chilled foods sector. She became a Registered Nutritionist with the Association for Nutrition following an MSc in Human Nutrition. Her leadership roles have included being a director of the Oxford Farming Conference and representing the Private Sector Mechanism in speeches at the UN Committee for Food Security in Rome. She is also a Fellow and committee member of IFST and a trustee of the Nutrition Society. In 2017, Barbara was awarded a Nuffield Farming Scholarship and travelled to Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, Israel, UK and USA to study international food and farming systems. In 2019, Barbara was awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list for her 'Services to Food Nutrition’. Barbara is currently researching diets to protect health in a doctoral training programme at the Centre for Public Health at Queen’s University Belfast. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.
What Youth Can Teach Us About Healthy Ageing