pathway: Health and Wellbeing/Health, Wellbing & Society Alumni

My research explores the predictors of and relationships among loneliness, types of social isolation (SI) and physical activity (PA) in rurally-living older adults in the UK using interdisciplinary, sequential mixed-methods. I focus on loneliness and SI because strong evidence shows an association with poor health in older age. Similarly, engaging in PA leads to prolonged healthy ageing. My experience in teaching older adult fitness classes also adds to my interest in this topic. I focus on rural areas because I think that the quiet, rural way of life in the UK countryside should be supported for those who cherish it.

This PhD research aims to improve our understanding regarding the typical training practices (i.e. what type of training is being completed?), health problems (i.e. which injuries and illnesses occur most frequently and what are the associated risk factors?) and athletic identity (i.e. how do health problems influence an individual’s athletic identity?) of adolescent distance runners. An interdisciplinary research design will be used, in order to generate an integrated understanding of these themes. This research will form a distinct contribution to the existing literature by improving our knowledge of how to manage the training practices and health problems of adolescent distance runners, with applicability to coaches, practitioners, athletes and academics.

My PhD is focused on how hydration and breakfast influence blood sugar control and appetite. The first trial involves testing the acute glycaemic and appetite response after being dehydrated versus rehydrated. Studies 2 and 3 involve analysing data in order to find trends in what people eat at breakfast, how it corresponds to what they eat later in the day and certain health outcomes. The final intervention aims to investigate whether sweet food at breakfast changes what people eat later in the day, as well as whether this is metabolically a better time of day to be eating sweet.

Through my doctoral research I have been ethnographically exploring how government policy is interpreted and incorporated into social care support for adults with learning disabilities in the UK. I have been particularly interested in looking at policies focused on empowering people with civil and economic rights and responsibilities over their lives. Influenced by liberal values, which position individuals as autonomous, self-sufficient agents, I am interested in exploring how these ‘sit’ in relation to the fact that people with learning disabilities have cognitive impairments and so are, in varying ways, reliant on others for support with aspects of their lives.

My research interests surround the aetiology of psychiatric disorders, and in particular anorexia nervosa. I also have an interest in the use of methodologies that promote the validity of inferences from research findings. My PhD research seeks to address whether anxiety phenotypes have a causal influence on anorexia nervosa. I am using a range of epidemiological approaches to test my hypotheses, with the aim of triangulating findings across different studies to promote the robustness of conclusions. In addition to my PhD research, I am involved with projects that probe biological and psychological mediators of eating behaviour and disordered eating.

Current research suggests that maturation timing (whether an individual biologically matures in advance of their peers, later than their peers or at an average time) may be an important factor in how individuals cope with different learning experiences and social contexts and can therefore play a role in subsequent psychological wellbeing. My PhD research aims to explore this within the context of elite dance training and to investigate how we might use this knowledge within dance teaching contexts to promote and to optimise psychological wellbeing in adolescent dancers.