Erla Gerður Sveinsdóttir graduated as a medical doctor from The University of Iceland in 1994 and as a specialist in family medicine in 2004.
She finished a master’s degree in public health form the University of Reykjavík in 2012. For five years she worked as a family doctor and from 2008 she has been focusing on obesity. She has work experience from two of the largest rehabilitation centers in Iceland and as a Medical director in one of them for two years period.
In 2009 she established a private clinic Heilsuborg which is a multidisciplinary center for obesity and lifestyle diseases. She is now one of two consulting physician for obesity in Iceland. Erla has been a board member for The Icelandic Association for the Study on Obesity from 2009 and president from 2012.