In this, the final episode of our first series of Next Generation Research, we're going to lift the curtain on who and what influences government policy and whether it ever sees the light of day. The focus of this episode is Dr. Oliver Mytton, he is an associate professor at the Institute of Child Health at University College London.

Oliver trained as a doctor and then moved into policy after feeling like he wanted to do more to help prevent illnesses caused by obesity. His main focus is now doing research to develop the evidence base, which can inform policies to prevent childhood obesity. We are going to learn about his work that helped develop the tax on sugary drinks which was implemented in 2017 and how important it is to analyse policies once they are implemented. We will hear from other key people who were part of making that tax a reality and, also what other suggestions to improve children's health were left behind and why.

You can find out more about Oliver's research at the Institute of Child Health here.

Evaluation of the soft drinks industry levy: https://www.mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk/research/studies/sdil/

NIHR Obesity Policy Research Unit (PRU): https://www.ucl.ac.uk/obesity-policy-research-unit/

You can follow Oliver on Twitter here

Host: Giles Yeo

Producer: Hester Cant

Executive Producer: Freya Hellier

This podcast was supported by the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network and funded by UKRI.

Find out more about the Future Leaders Fellowship here

The views expressed in the podcast are the views of the individuals in the podcast, and do not necessarily represent the views of UKRI or the FLF Development Network.

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