Alison M Lennox is Professor of Public Health Nutrition in the Department of Nutritional Sciences. Professor Lennox current research focusses on national nutrition surveys, their methods and findings on food consumption and nutrient intakes in the UK and around the world and trends in intake over time. She continues to have interests in her earlier research area of gastrointestinal function, particularly the roles of dietary fibre and starch. She has considerable experience in issues relating nutrition to food policy, dietary surveys and methodologies, and regulatory affairs.

Professor Lennox’s first degree was in Physiology from the University of Edinburgh, which was followed by a Diploma in Nutrition and PhD from the University of Cambridge. Her PhD research was conducted on dietary fibre and human colonic function at the Dunn Clinical Nutrition Centre in Cambridge with Dr John Cummings. She carried out post-doctoral training at the Mayo Clinic, with Dr Sidney Philips, and at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio with Dr John Banwell. Alison returned to the UK and worked with Professor Nicholas Wald at St Bartholomew’s Medical College in London, before returning to Canada in 1987, where she took up a faculty appointment at the University of Saskatchewan.

After 12 years at the University of Saskatchewan, where she moved from Assistant to Associate and then Full Professor and for some time the Head of the Division of Nutrition and Dietetics, College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, Alison spent two years at CANTOX Health Sciences International in Mississauga, Ontario, where she was the Director of Nutritional Sciences, followed two years as Director of Research at the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

In 2004 Alison returned again to the UK, taking up the post of Head of Population Nutrition Research at MRC Human Nutrition Research in Cambridge. In this role she led HNR’s responsibility for the National Diet and Nutrition Survey and the Diet and Nutrition Survey of Infants and Young Children. In 2013 Alison joined the University of Surrey.

Professor Lennox continues to publish under the name Alison M Stephen.

national nutrition surveys, their methods and results on food consumption and nutrient intakes - trends in intake over time - time of day, dietary intake and health - the eating context (socio-ecological eating environment), dietary intake and health - gastrointestinal function, particularly the roles of dietary fibre and starch.

Pot GK, Richards M, Prynne CJ, Stephen AM. Development of the Eating Choices Index (ECI): a four item index to measure healthiness of diet. Public Health Nutr ( in press). Corder K, van Sluijs EMF, Ridgway CL, Steele RM, Prynne CJ, Stephen AM, Bamber DJ, Dunn VJ, Goodyer IM, Ekelund U. 2013. Breakfast Consumption and Physical Activity in Adolescents: Daily Associations and Hourly Patterns. AJCN (in press). Donin AS, Nightingale CM, Owen CG, Rudnicka AR, Jebb SA, Ambrosini GL, Stephen AM, Cook DG, Whincup PH. 2013. Dietary Energy Intake Is Associated With Type 2 Diabetes Risk Markers In Children. Diabetes Care. 2013 Aug 12. [Epub ahead of print] Almoosawi S, Cole D, Nicholson S, Bayes I, Teucher B, Bates B, Mindell J, Tipping S, Deverill C, Stephen AM. 2013. Biomarkers of diabetes risk in the National Diet and Nutrition Survey rolling programme (2008-2011). J Comm Health and Epidem ( in press) Mak TN, Prynne CJ, Cole D, Fitt E, Roberts C, Bates B, Stephen AM. 2013. Patterns of sociodemographic and food practice characteristics in relation to fruit and vegetable consumption in children: results from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey rolling programme (2008-2010). Public Health Nutr Aug 7:1-12. [Epub ahead of print] Almoosawi S, Prynne C, Hardy R, Stephen A. 2013. Time-of-day of energy intake: association with hypertension and blood pressure 10 years later in the 1946 British birth cohort. J Hypertens 31:882-92 Almoosawi S, Prynne CJ, Hardy R, Stephen AM. 2013. Diurnal eating rhythms: Association with long-term development of diabetes in the 1946 British birth cohort. Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases (in press)