Jane Wardle

Frances Jane Wardle was born in Oxford, England to Marcella (née Brough) and Peter Wardle, a portrait artist, the eldest of four children. The family had little money, moved often, and parents were frequently unavailable; her mother underwent lengthy hospitalisations due to mental illness and her father, who she "was deeply attached to [..] was often absent", to the point that Jane and her siblings spent several months in a children’s home and Jane assumed parental responsibilities early on.

She died from complications of the disease on 20 October 2015, almost 20 years after her diagnosis, survived by husband, Andrew Steptoe, her children, 3 grandchildren and her father Peter Wardle.

Jane Wardle was founding editor of the British Journal of Health Psychology, and was on the editorial board of 8 international journals. She continued her involvement with the development of health psychology, and was Chair of the Division of Health Psychology of the British Psychological Society from 2000–2001.

In 1997, Wardle took over as director of the ICRF Centre for Health Behaviour Research and was responsible for moving it from the Institute of Psychiatry to the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London. When she became director, the Centre had 8 members, but is now the largest concentration of health psychology research in the UK with more than 60 staff. It has core support from three Cancer Research UK programme grants, and additional funding from the MRC, BBSRC, National Institute for Health Research, INRA, and EU FP7.

As a campaigner, Wardle sought to ensure the insights from health psychology research were translated into effective public health policy. Wardle set up a charity called Weight Concern in 1997 to tackle the rising problem of obesity; which won the Best New Charity Award in 2002, and is continuing to offer support and advice to individuals and the UK NHS. In 2009, Wardle appeared in BBC Horizon: Why Are Thin People Not Fat? (season 45, episode 8), a documentary which examined why some people manage to stay slim while the world is being affected by an obesity epidemic. In it, she explored whether eating habits are genetic or learned.

In 1991, she shifted to full-time research when appointed senior scientist at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) Health Behaviour Unit and Reader in clinical psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry.

Wardle was appointed as lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry in 1976. She completed her PhD in 1986, and in 1987 was promoted to senior lecturer in clinical psychology and consultant clinical psychologist at the Institute of Psychiatry and King's College London. Her tasks were teaching, clinical practice and occasional research. Martin Jarvis, emeritus professor of health psychology, a colleague and friend for 40 years said "I like to think I played a part in persuading her to go on and study whole populations."

In 1976 Wardle married Nicholas Stirling, with whom she had daughter Lucy Stirling, and later divorced from. In 1991 she married Andrew Steptoe, had son Matthew Wardle and adopted stepson William Steptoe. She lived in Marylebone, London.

After a disrupted education involving 13 different schools, she requested admission to Oxford High School, which was granted and was even allowed to live in the house of the headmistress Mary Warnock, Baroness Warnock from time to time. She subsequently studied at St Anne's College, Oxford, graduating with a BA in psychology and physiology in 1973. She moved to the King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry where she completed training in clinical psychology.

Jane Wardle FBA FMedSci (30 October 1950 – 20 October 2015) was a professor of clinical psychology and director of the Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre at University College London. She was one of the pioneers of health psychology in the UK and internationally, known for her seminal work on the contribution of psychology to public health, particularly the role of psychological research in cancer prevention and work on the behavioural and genetic determinants of eating behaviour and obesity.