Professor Mary L’Abbe
Advisory Board Chair
INFORMAS Food Provision Module Leader
Earle W. McHenry Professor, and Chair, Department of Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Canada
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Dr. Mary L’Abbé is a Professor and former Chair, Department of Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, where she leads a research group on Food and Nutrition Policy for Population Health. She is an expert in public health nutrition, nutrition policy, and food and nutrition regulations and in 2018 was named to the Order of Canada. Her research examines the nutritional quality of the Canadian food supply, nutrient profiling methods, dietary intake patterns, and consumer research on food choices related to obesity and chronic disease. She developed and has maintained a Canadian database of national and private label branded foods (FLIP) and restaurant foods (Menu-FLIP), updated regularly since 2010. Professor L’Abbé is a member of several committees of the World Health Organization including the Nutrition Guidance Expert Advisory Group on Diet and Health, chairs the PAHO Technical Advisory Group on Sodium Reduction for CVD prevention and was a member of the US National Academies of Science Panel on Global Harmonization of DRIs. She is the Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Nutrition Policy for NCD Prevention. Dr. L’Abbé was co-chair of the Canadian Trans Fat Task Force, and Chair/Vice-Chair of the Canadian Sodium Working Group. She is the Canadian lead and one of the founding members of INFORMAS ((International Network for Food and Obesity / Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) Research, Monitoring and Action Support), leading the module on Food Provision. Before coming to the University of Toronto, Dr L’Abbe was Director, Bureau of Nutritional Sciences at Health Canada. She holds a PhD in nutrition from McGill University and has authored over 250 peer-reviewed scientific publications, book chapters and government reports.