Christopher John Snowdon is a British author and freelance journalist. He has written for the Spiked magazine, newspapers The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, as well as the Conservative Home website. He is particularly known as a vocal opponent of government intervention in areas such as tobacco, alcohol and obesity. Snowdon is also Head of Lifestyle Economics, which "focuses on the regulation of controversial products and activities" at the right-wing lobbying group and BP/British American Tobacco-funded Institute of Economic Affairs.Snowdon was born in North Yorkshire in 1976 and studied history at Lancaster University, graduating in 1998 with a second-class degree. He now lives in Sussex with his wife and daughter.His first book, Velvet Glove, Iron Fist (2009), is a history of anti-smoking activity from the fifteenth century to the present day.Other notable publications authored by Snowdon include the 2014 IEA report entitled 'The Fat Lie', which was dismissed as "laughable nonsense" by nutrition expert, Dr Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, as well “completely wrong” by Professor Mike Lean, Chair of Human Nutrition at the University of Glasgow.