Christine M. Thomas

Christine M Thomas is a Health Economist and Visiting Professor at the University of Sunderland, who has spent her career evaluating whether the benefits of healthcare interventions promised in research, actually work in reality.

Since researching the cost of obesity-related depression two decades ago, she has lost and regained a total of 10 stone herself. As a serial dieter, she knows the shame of stepping on the scales, the euphoria of hitting a goal weight and the heartbreak of regaining it – again.

Her personal turning point came in midlife, as her children reached adolescence and she realised how her own body dissatisfaction was shaping their attitude to food and self-worth. Determined to break the cycle for the next generation, she began questioning why the promise of slimming – from diets to drugs – make women believe their bodies need to be fixed in order to change their lives.

Christine writes not as a guru with answers, but as a woman who has struggled with the cycle of weight loss and regain, and a professional analysis why the evidence fails to match our experience.