Dr Chris van Tulleken is an infectious disease doctor and Professor of Infection at UCL, using his public platform to challenge the commercial structures that threaten human and planetary health.
Chris van Tulleken has spent his clinical and academic career within the UCL and UCLH community, first joining in 2008 as an infectious diseases registrar before completing a PhD in molecular biology. Alongside this, he has built a hugely successful media career.
For years, Chris’ work sat in separate boxes: “children’s television over there, grown‑ups’ television over here, research over here, clinical work there.” After a decade of fronting BBC programmes that advised millions of people on how they could lead healthier lives, he realised that “everything had got worse”. Childhood obesity, unhappiness, and drug prescription rates all rose. Chris realised that it wasn’t due to a lack of knowledge or that people won’t listen, it was that the weren’t being given any choices:
People eat the food they eat because it’s what they can afford, it’s what’s marketed to them, it’s what’s available. The forces determining the air you breathe, the water you drink, the food you eat, the car you drive - they are overwhelmingly influenced by global corporations.
Social determinants like poverty and housing still matter but the deep engine of the problem is commercial determinants.
He argues that infectious disease, nutrition, and environmental degradation are inseparable, noting that the same things that drive the risk of pandemic disease also drive poor diets: deforestation, intensive farming, and the erosion of biodiversity, issues that are even more stark globally:
Marketing in the UK is harmful, but it can be deadly in low- and middle-income countries.
A major turning point was while filming documentary What Are We Feeding Our Kids?, which revealed a single explanation for childhood obesity: ultra‑processed food. The programme not only changed Chris’ approach but informed a whole new research and policy agenda. This included the landmark Update Trial, now one of the most cited nutrition studies worldwide and a major Lancet series on ultra‑processed food. Chris’ timely bestseller Ultra-Processed People also exposed these issues to millions of readers.
Chris currently co-hosts the award‑winning children’s science series Operation Ouch! and continues to present major BBC documentaries such as Disease X. Despite his public profile, he avoids all commercial partnerships and is wary of the “TV doctor” label and modern advice culture:
I try not to tell individuals what to do. You will not find any dietary advice or advice in general in my book for example. I have learnt that what people respond much better to is information, but they are the experts at what to do with that information.
He sees his role as amplifying rigorous science, particularly research led by women and teams in the Global South, and is quick to credit the collaborative ecosystem rather than individual achievement:
There’s nothing I’ve done that hasn’t leaned on a huge amount of hard work from other people. I’ve been fortunate to amplify research that might otherwise have gone unheard, but I’m often just the one that brings it together.
Together with colleagues across UCL and around the world, he is helping to build the momentum needed to transform our food and health systems.
