RSA NextGen: Dev Sharma

Where did you grow up? 

I grew up in Leicester, where food was culture. Festivals filled the streets with the smell of spices and family kitchens passed down recipes like they were heirlooms. But the everyday food landscape around me told a different story. For much of my childhood there was no supermarket nearby, and the local shops were those typical of a ‘food desert’ – packed with cheap, processed food and junk food ads everywhere. I later learned that young people growing up in food deserts can die up to 10 years earlier than those who grow up with better options. That fact made me angry and it shaped how I see fairness.

Food is not only about culture – it’s about health, dignity and the options that every family deserves.

What did you want to be as a child and what are you now?

As a child, I thought being a fireman was the coolest job ever. Now, I’m a food activist and former Youth MP. As a founding youth campaigner with activist group Bite Back 2030, I helped push the case for an online junk food ad ban all the way into the Queen’s Speech, a policy that will provide 127,000 extra years of healthy life to children.

What is one thing the world needs to know about you? 

I don’t hate cake. I don’t want to ban junk food. My fight is with a system that bombards young people with ads and stacks the odds against healthy options.

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What are you most passionate about and why? 

Food justice. The way our food system is set up right now, it’s corporate choices – not young people themselves – that are making the decisions about young people’s health. I want to flip that power dynamic by stopping the bombardment of junk food ads, fix price and placement so healthy staples win in shops, and make standards mandatory so that school food sets kids up for life. 

What are you reading right now? 

Stuart Gillespie’s Food Fight. It’s an amazing book that reveals how the food system we once relied on for nutrition is now the very thing making us sick.

What is your idea of misery? 

It hurts knowing that more than one in three 11-year-olds leave primary school at risk of diet-related illness, yet the system continues to let junk food dominate.

If you had one wish to change the world, what would it be? 

I wish that every child could grow up free from the grip of junk food marketing, with access to food that’s healthy, affordable and culturally meaningful.

Why did you decide to become a Fellow of the RSA?

I wanted to be part of a community that believes ideas can change systems. For me, that means reimagining the food system so it works for young people. The RSA gives me a space to share, learn and connect.