Senior Research Associate

The Nutrition and Behaviour Unit (NBU) at University of Bristol is looking to appoint full-time maternity cover for the post of Senior Research Associate. The successful candidate will work alongside Professor Peter Rogers (PI), Professor Jeff Brunstrom (Co-I), and Professor Susan Jebb (Co-I) on a BBSRC-DRINC funded project entitled “Nudge150: Combining small changes to foods to achieve a sustained decrease in energy intake”.

Background to the project: Achieving sustained decreases in energy (food) intake is key to maintaining healthy weight and combating overweight and obesity. Despite the apparent simplicity of this, most attempts to reduce body weight are either unsuccessful or weight that has been lost is regained over time. This project combines two principles to meet this challenge. The first of these arises from the fact that there is not tight physiological control of energy balance. It has been found that if people under-eat at one meal, they do not fully compensate with increased eating at subsequent meals. So, if we ate 150 kcal less at lunch every day for a year we might expect to eat 18,250 kcal (365 x 50 kcal) less over that year, which would help to prevent weight gain, or might even cause slight weight loss. This focus on reduced portion size is consistent with the UK Government's 'Responsibility Deal' and public health initiatives in other countries. We will test the short-term and long-term feasibility of this 150 kcal 'nudge' to eating behaviour in this project. Second, we will also investigate the effectiveness of various additional small nudges to the foods we eat aimed at increasing the effectiveness and long-term acceptability of the reduced portion size nudge (perhaps leading to up to a spontaneous 100 kcal per day reduction in food intake). An obvious approach would be to try to increase the fillingness of foods, but this has been tried in a variety of studies and has met with limited success. Instead we will investigate ways to increase meal 'satisfaction' and test whether this helps to control appetite - our approach here is 'reward your appetite,' rather than 'feel fuller for longer.'

This project comprises a series of initially laboratory-based experiments culminating in a randomized controlled trial at the end of the project. This research will be conducted in the Nutrition and Behaviour Unit (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/expsych/research/brain/nbu/), which is based in the School of Experimental Psychology at the University of Bristol.

 

The post is maternity cover and is available for 6 months (24 weeks) full time. We are looking for an experienced post-doctoral researcher. The successful candidate will be responsible for the day-to-day management of the project and will be the line manager for a Research Support Assistant also working on the project. Tasks will include experiment design, data collection (participant testing), data analysis, giving presentations, and the preparation of findings for peer-reviewed journals. Since this project is funded by the BBSRC Diet and Health Research Industry Club (DRINC), the post-holder will also be required to liaise with industry. You will also identify opportunities to undertake independent research. Experience managing research projects within the field of Nutrition and Behaviour is desirable.

 

Interviews are expected to be held in the week commencing 26th September and the post will be available from 2nd November 2016. 

Informal enquires can be directed to Professor Peter Rogers (tel: 0117 928 8584; peter.rogers@bristol.ac.uk).