Dr Sheela Reddy, 1953-2026 Obituary
By Dr Adrienne Cullum RNutr, Prof Louis Levy RNutr FAfN and Dr Alison Tedstone RNutr FFAfN
Sheela Reddy, a strong and effective advocate for nutrition science and policy in the UK, died on 1st August 2026 after a period of ill health.
Sheela will be known to many in the nutrition community for her role as Principal Nutritionist at the Department of Health, where she provided robust scientific and policy advice on public health nutrition from 1998 to 2012.
Importantly, Sheela established the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) which took over from the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy (COMA) in 2001 and tirelessly worked with SACN’s Subgroup on Maternal and Child Nutrition (SMCN) until her retirement. With her role as observer for SACN and secretariat lead for SMCN Sheela supported and contributed to the development, review and delivery of numerous high profile and influential SACN publications including amongst others reports on salt (2003), vitamin A (2005), folic acid and development of disease (2006) and early life nutrition (2011), and statements on the timing of the introduction of gluten into the infant diet (2011), and on ‘Good Night Milks’ (2008).
As well as her vital support to SACN and SMCN, Sheela engaged with a range of governmental and non-governmental organisations to promote evidence-based nutrition science and its implementation. This influenced policy development, interventions and research including the WHO, CODEX and EU, WHO-Euro Committees on Nutrition, Obesity and Non-communicable diseases, European Union committees on Nutrition Labelling and Nutritional Standards in Hospitals, Nutrition Committees of Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. She had strong working relationships with professional organisations including the British Dietetic Association and the Nutrition Society of Great Britain and Ireland (NS), where she was an observer at Council. Sheela was a regular attendee at national and international conferences engaging with colleagues across the profession and related areas promoting standards of evidence and utilising developing science to improve public health nutrition in the UK.
Sheela was passionate about early years nutrition and knew the difference well-crafted advice and policy could make. She was particularly instrumental in the strengthening of UK advice on breastfeeding and age at complementary feeding. Sheela was a strong, evidence-based civil servant, with fantastic attention to detail, who gave clear, robust advice to Ministers and challenged misconceptions. Her legacy is the important contribution she made to improvements in breastfeeding rates in the UK since the 1990s to the present day.
Sheela graduated from Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University, Hyderabad with a first-class degree in 1973 and received her master’s in nutrition from that institution in 1975 and an MSc with distinction from Queen Elizabeth College, University of London in 1985. Professor Tom Sanders was her mentor and supervised her PhD (awarded 1991) comparing the diet and health of premenopausal Indian and Caucasian vegetarian women at King’s College London. Her post-doctoral work, also with Tom, included the impact of fat reduction in premenopausal women on sex hormones, menstrual cycle and cardiovascular risk. From 1994 to 1998 Sheela was the Principal Nutritionist at Leatherhead Food Research Association where she advised on nutrition labelling and legislation, new food product development, undertook reviews of the literature, and disseminated up to date information and training on Food and Nutrition. In 1998 Sheela was recruited to the then Department of Health (DH) to support the work of the COMA, where her initial tasks included stewardship of the COMA report on folic acid (2001) and review of the Welfare Food Scheme (2002).
Sheela saw the professionalisation of nutrition as of the utmost importance; in her DH role she saw the harm caused by inappropriate advice and impact of misleading health and nutrition claims. As such, she supported the UK voluntary register for nutritionists (UKVRN) and was central to the establishment and recognition of the Association for Nutrition (AfN). Sheela was an Honorary Founding Fellow of the AfN and a Council member and Trustee from 2009-12.
Following her retirement in 2012, Sheela retained an active interest in nutrition working with WHO, and teaching at King’s College London and Southampton.
Outside work, Sheela demonstrated an immense personal resilience and fierce commitment to her friends and family. She loved a good meal, a gossip, and the theatre. In her retirement, she loved to travel and spent much time with family in India.
She leaves behind a track record of excellence in nutrition science and policy and in the professionalisation of public health nutrition. Sheela is fondly remembered by colleagues and friends within the government nutrition teams across the UK; members of SACN and SMCN; AfN and the NS.
Sheela is survived by her beloved son, Vasisht Pingle, and her mother, Vedavati Devi.
