Melissa Sweet

Melissa Sweet is a freelance health writer and journalist in Australia. She holds honorary positions
as an adjunct senior lecturer in the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney and as an
adjunct senior lecturer in the School of Medicine of the Sydney Campus of the University of Notre
Dame Australia. Sweet has been writing about the promises and pitfalls of evidence-informed
health care for more than a decade. Together with Judy and Les Irwig, she published Smart Health
Choices: How to Make Informed Health Decisions (Allen and Unwin, 1999), which gives readers some
tools for critically assessing health information. Sweet recently published Inside Madness (Pan
Macmillan, 2006), which combines a number of nonfiction stories, including that of murdered
psychiatrist Margaret Tobin, the difficulties of achieving change in complex health systems, and
a history of mental health in Australia. Her latest book is The Big Fat Conspiracy: How to Protect
Your Family’s Health (ABC Books, 2007), which attempts to reframe obesity as an environmental
health issue and gives families, communities, and other groups some tips for promoting healthier
environments for children. November 2008