Nutrition and lifestyle special interest group

Our aim

• To support primary care teams to provide better care to those with health problems related to nutrition.  
• To share best-practice and the latest evidence on nutrition. 
• To connect primary care teams, academics, commissioners and those working on policy matters to drive improvements across the spectrum of lifestyle risk factors.

Group members

Dr. Shamila Wanninayake

Dr. Shamila Wanninayake has a longstanding interest in nutrition, obesity prevention and weight management, underpinned by a Psychology degree from the University of Leeds where she contributed to obesity research before retraining as a doctor at UCL.  She holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Obesity and Weight Management and represents primary care on Oxfordshire’s Healthy Weights in Childhood multidisciplinary working group. 

She strongly advocates a whole systems approach to achieving healthy weights and lifestyle and strives to inspire all patients to make some changes that can have a wider impact on their wellbeing in an evidence-based way.  She sits on the National Child Measurement Programme Board and contributes to national health policy and governance as an RCGP Council Member and Clinical Advisor, and also teaches on the undergraduate medical degree course at the University of Oxford.

Group outputs

• RCGP position statement on Obesity and Malnutrition (PDF file, 187 KB)
• Co-author Managing Malnutrition in the Community guidance document (external PDF)
• Delivery of tailored Introductory certificate training courses.
• The nutrition and lifestyle special interest group has developed specific programmes that relate to nutrition and lifestyle.
• Several national and faculty-led in person and online nutrition and lifestyle conferences 2025/2026

Aims for 2026/27

Policy:

• Be integral in the RCGP work calling for National action on obesity and preventative medicine.
• We will be working more closing with the RCGP Clinical Policy Team looking to collaborate on key consultations and documents with 3rd Party stakeholders such as NICE, on Nutrition, Obesity and Lifestyle related guidelines.

Community:

• Closer collaboration with other related SIGs tackling social determinants of health and inequalities sharing events and resources and building on existing work.
• Support the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges working group on nutrition.

Education:

• Lobby for Preventative metabolic health & Lifestyle medicine to be embedded into undergraduate and postgraduate curriculums including GP training and medical student teaching programmes.

Events:

• We will be organising a number of events over the coming year as either standalone conferences and events or in collaboration with related SIGs.