Childhood Obesity Management National Networking Forum

Prof. Skae is a Consultant Paediatric Endocrinologist and Diabetologist at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital (RMCH). She is the Hospital Medical Director at RMCH and co-leads the Complications from Excess Weight (CEW) service and Differences of Sex Development (DSD) Disorder services in Manchester. She also has active research interests in skeletal dysplasias in addition to obesity. Mars was awarded a Churchill Fellowship for work in Childhood obesity in 2019 and is passionate about tackling health inequalities that lead to excess weight. 

Emma Webb is Clinical Associate Professor in Translational and Clinical Research at the University of East Anglia. She is a consultant paediatric endocrinologist at the Jenny Lind Children's Hospital, Norwich where she leads the Complications from Excess Weight (CEW) service. Her research is focused on the interactions between nutrition, the gut microbiome and metabolic health in children and young people. Her work aims to understand how diet quality and micronutrient status shape the gut microbiome and influence health outcomes in vulnerable paediatric populations, including those living with obesity. She is also leading research in congenital adrenal hyperplasia and metabolic bone disease. Patient and family involvement is integral to all her studies. 

Sadaf Farooqi is a Wellcome Principal Research Fellow and Professor of Metabolism and Medicine at the University of Cambridge, UK. She is an internationally leading Clinician Scientist who has made seminal contributions to understanding the genetic and physiological mechanisms that underlie obesity and its complications. The work of Sadaf Farooqi and her colleagues has fundamentally altered the understanding of how body weight is regulated. With colleagues, she discovered and characterised the first genetic disorders that cause severe childhood obesity and established that the principal driver of obesity in these conditions was a failure of the control of appetite. Her work is often cited as an exemplar of how the translation of research into the mechanisms of disease can lead to patient benefit. She has received a number of awards including the 2024 Outstanding Clinical Investigator Award from the Endocrine Society. In 2021, she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of her exceptional contribution to science. 

Dr Chris Hewitt is a pharmaceutical physician who has spent the last 11 years working in the pharmaceutical industry across a range of companies, including AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk and Recordati Rare Diseases. He is currently Country Medical Director for the UK and Ireland at Rhythm Pharmaceuticals.

Chris is a member of the Royal College of Physicians of London and the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, Chris trained in adult internal medicine and was a Specialist Registrar in Medical Oncology in the UK NHS.

Dr Evelien Gevers studied Medicine at Leiden University in Leiden, The Netherlands. She developed her interest in Paediatric Endocrinology as an undergraduate, and studied the effect of GnRH analogue treatment in girls with precocious puberty in the Paediatric Endocrine department in Leiden University Medical Centre. After graduating, she worked for a few months as a clinical scientist in the Dutch Working Group for Growth Hormone, with Prof Jan Maarten Wit. She then won a 2 year grant from the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences to study growth hormone (GH) secretion, GH binding protein and GH receptors and their regulation by sex steroids in the rat, in The National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill, with Prof Iain Robinson. After return to The Netherlands, she continued her PhD project with Jan Maarten Wit in Leiden University, further focusing on the growth plate and growth, extending her work to estrogen receptors, PTH receptors and PTHrP in the growth plate. She then started her Paediatric training in the Erasmus Medical Centre – Sophia Children’s Hospital in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. She interrupted her clinical training to return to Iain Robinson’s group in The National Institute for Medical Research in 1999, as a postdoctoral scientist and worked on the GH deficient dwarf rat, GH and bone marrow adipocytes, and GH signalling through Stat5b in the growth plate. She then also joined the Department of Endocrinology at Great Ormond Street Hospital as an honorary clinical fellow with Prof Mehul Dattani. From 2007, she continued her Paediatric training in London Hospitals, and Paediatric Endocrine training in Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. In 2012, she worked at the Erasmus Medical Centre – Sophia Children’s Hospital and the diabetes centre ‘Diabeter’ to complete her training for dual Dutch and UK registration and continued there in her first Consultant post. In 2013, she was appointed as a Consultant Paediatric Endocrinologist in Barts Health – Royal London Children’s Hospital with an academic component at the Centre for Endocrinology at WHRI.

She has been awarded Young Investigator Awards from the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology, the Dutch Society for Paediatrics and the GH and IGF1 Research Society. 

She is a member and Vice-Chair of the Science Committee of the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology, a member of the National Paediatric Diabetes Audit Data Working Group, and the National Working Group for Type 2 Diabetes in Children and the British Paediatric and Adolescent Bone Group.

She is PI for many commercial and non-commercial NIHR studies at Royal London Children’s Hospital and is the National Coordinating Investigator for studies in Prader Willi Syndrome (Destiny, Soleno) and Type 2 Diabetes (Vertis, Merck). She is part of the Oversight Committee for the Interleukin-2 Therapy of Autoimmunity in Diabetes Study.

Dr Catherine Homer is an Associate Professor of Obesity and Public Health in the Physical Activity, Wellness and Public Health research group based in the School of Sport and Physical Activity, Sheffield Hallam University. Catherine is the Healthy and Active 100 research theme lead in the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre (AWRC), Deputy Editor of the Journal Perspectives in Public Health and the Yorkshire and Humber and the Public Health Specialist Research Lead for the NIHR Research Delivery Network.  Catherine an expert in public health and obesity with 20+ years' research and practice experience as a Public Health Specialist in a NHS Trust and Local Authority. Catherine has over 60 peer-reviewed articles and conference proceedings on qualitative health evaluations of paediatric/adolescent obesity, experiences of bariatric surgery, and fuel poverty health risks (old and cold) and on research grants worth over £7.4m as PI/Co-I. Catherine has strong collaborations with external partners and academic institutions and is currently PI on a £1.5m NIHR HS&DR funded (2024-26) project 'ENHANCE - Evaluating the NHS England12 Complications of Excess weight clinics for children and young people' led by academics from five universities and two hospital trusts. Catherine is also Co-I on a £5m NIHR PHR project Doncaster Health Determinants Research Collaboration (2022-2027).

Dr Elysa Ioannou [https://linktr.ee/elysaioa] is a Researcher at Sheffield Hallam University and a Registered Associate Nutritionist (AfN). She currently works on the ENHANCE project, a £1.5 million NIHR-funded national evaluation of NHS Complications from Excess Weight clinics for children and young people. Elysa is also Evaluation Lead for the Sport England-funded Place Expansion Programme and recently completed an Early Career Research and Innovation Fellowship. Her research focuses on obesity, physical activity, health equity, systems thinking, and chronic disease prevention, and she is passionate about developing and evaluating evidence-based approaches that improve health outcomes.

Dr Omobolanle Kazeem is a Consultant Paediatrician in childhood obesity and diabetes at the Jenny Lind Children’s Hospital. Her work sits at the intersection of clinical care, public health, and health-system improvement, with a focus on translating evidence into better outcomes for children and families.

She holds a Master of Public Health and completed postgraduate training in public health and health systems through the WHO Collaborating Centre at Imperial College London, alongside specialist training in healthcare evidence communication at Harvard Medical School.

Dr Kazeem is also a member of a NICE guideline committee, contributing directly to the development of national, evidence-based healthcare recommendations.