Denise King, Wirral Community Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust

My first career was as a professional dancer travelling the world! Through my years of training I developed a keen interest in nutrition having to ensure I ate the right foods to sustain the energy levels required to dance.
This interest continued to grow as I learnt that food is so much more than just an energy source, it affects our mood and wellbeing and can help to prevent and cure our population from many of our modern diseases such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease, just to name a few!

I am currently one of the Paediatric Clinical Lead Dietitians and have a specialist interest in infant and early years nutrition. In 2016, I expanded my expertise in this area further by qualifying as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.

My role involves supporting parents and carers overcome barriers to meet their child’s nutritional requirements for optimum growth.
This can be through many different forms of feeding such as breastfeeding, bottle feeding or using artificial feeding routes, where tubes might be inserted in to either the child’s nose or tummy.

I chose to specialise in Paediatrics because I am passionate about getting nutrition right in the early years, and strongly believe that if we can improve the health of our children this will lead to a healthier and happier nation with less pressure on the NHS and other health providing services. Even small increases in breastfeeding for example would provide huge economic benefits.