Honours - Nutrition Science

Maintaining bone health for populations at risk, particularly among postmenopausal women is a global challenge. Research has demonstrated that dietary factors are closely associated with bone health and there is growing recognition of the role that diet plays in modulating bone mineral density. Risk of poor diet is particularly heightened for postmenopausal women with estrogen deficiency further contributing to the risk of osteoporosis. This project will involve dietary data collection and analysis, to help understand how different dietary patterns associate with bone density among postmenopausal women.  

Supervisors: Professor Liesbeth Vandenput, Dr Anoohya Gandham

Contact: Dr Anoohya Gandam anoohya.gandham@acu.edu.eu

Hydration is critical for performance.  Dehydration not only reduces physical performance but also performance across a range of cognitive tasks including sensation, perception, motor coordination, executive function, attention, and memory.  It also appears to impair learning in school children, but whether dehydration impairs the learning of sport-related motor skills remains unknown.  Sport-related motor skills are often developed through implicit learning, capitalising on subconscious processes to automate the skill performance, making it more robust in the face of fatigue or psychological pressure.  Therefore, this study will assess the impact of thirst and hydration status on implicit learning in young adults.

Supervisors: David Opar, Doug Whyte, Ryan Tam, Helen Aucote, Adrienne Forsyth
Contact: Doug Whyte doug.whyte@acu.edu.au
Campus: Melbourne

Research has established a bi-directional relationship between food and mood. Mental health can be influenced by foods consumed as well as attitudes and perceptions toward food and eating. In turn, poor mental health can lead to inadequate dietary intake with further impacts on physical and mental health. WIRL is a commercial mobile nutritional psychiatry and mindfulness-based behaviour change program designed by dietitians to support mental health. This project will evaluate the impact of the use of the WIRL program on indicators of mental health.

Supervisors: Adrienne Forsyth, Emma Stirling, in collaboration with WIRL
Contact: Adrienne Forsyth adrienne.forsyth@acu.edu.au
Campus: Melbourne and North Sydney

Individualised dietetic advice is the gold-standard for improving dietary quality for individuals with or at risk of a chronic disease such as Type 2 Diabetes. Recently, dietary advice in the form of time-restricted eating has become popular due to a lack of focus on what to eat and a greater focus on when to eat. However, the impact of these dietary practices on overall diet quality is not well understood. As a part of a large multi-centre project, this honours project will involve dietary data collection and diet analysis including assessment of diet quality. This research will help understand how changing timing of dietary intake influences diet quality in a large cohort of participants informing future research in this area.

Supervisors: Dr Evelyn Parr (ACU) and Dr Brooke Devlin (UQ)
Contact: evelyn.parr@acu.edu.au
Campus: Melbourne

Dietary acculturation is a phenomenon that see changes in dietary habits following migration. The changes effect both migrants and their host cultures. Australia is a multicultural nation with two-thirds of the population born overseas. Following on from work already completed to assess/measure dietary acculturation in Australian migrants, this project will extend understanding of the mechanisms and impacts of dietary acculturation in migrant groups to Australia, and its effect on health. Data will be collected through structured interviews and focus groups using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. This research will inform approaches to addressing food-related health issues for health professionals in practice.

Supervisors: Sharon Croxford & Emma Stirling
Contact: Sharon.croxford@acu.edu.au
Campus: Melbourne and North Sydney

Knowledge and skills in culinary arts is increasingly recognised as an important area of study for students in human nutrition science degrees in order to take advantage of emerging opportunities within industries that are looking for graduates with culinary, food and nutrition science expertise. Undergraduate nutrition science degrees have traditionally attracted students with an interest in food and nutrition from a dietary intervention perspective with varying levels of interest and literacy in the culinary arts. Through the development of a purpose-built survey, the project will collect baseline data from 1^st years nutrition science students to measure their culinary science literacy.

Supervisors: Sharon Croxford & Emma Stirling
Contact: Sharon.croxford@acu.edu.au
Campus: Melbourne and North Sydney

This project focuses on a randomised, placebo-controlled cross-over study to investigate the impact of a low carbohydrate, electrolyte hydration tablet vs water on fluid restoration and hydration markers following exercise-induced hydration. Twenty athletes will be recruited to the study that will examine the thermal characteristics of doing a late afternoon running session in the heat, including a between gender comparison, and the effect of electrolyte replacement in fluids consumed before bed on sleep quality and rehydration. The project activities will include subject recruitment, baseline testing, exercise protocol implementation, nutrition intervention, and data collection with some preliminary analysis.

Supervisors: Jamie Whitfield, Rebecca Hall, Louise Burke, Adrienne Forsyth
Contact: Jamie Whitfield Jamie.whitfield@acu.edu.au
Campus: Melbourne

Elderly patients with fractured neck of femur are often malnourished on admission. Malnutrition can lead to delayed recovery, an increased length of stay, and increased risk of postoperative complications. Blanket referral to dietetic services and implementation of strategies to prevent or manage malnutrition enables access to dietetic services without the need for screening of this high-risk group. This project will assess the effectiveness of the implementation of the ortho-geriatric clinical pathway with a retrospective audit of dietetic interventions and nutrition outcomes. 

Supervisors: Adrienne Forsyth, Lachlan Mitchell, Adam Walsh, in collaboration with St Vincent’s Hospital
Contact: Adrienne Forsyth adrienne.forsyth@acu.edu.au
Campus: Melbourne

Mealtime in residential aged care provides the context for socialisation as well as good nutrition. Experiences at mealtimes, informed by past experiences and associations with food and mealtimes, influence residents’ perceptions of quality of life. The mealtime environment, therefore, may be manipulated to promote enjoyment as well as to encourage dietary intake. This project will assess the impact of mealtime environment changes on residential aged care quality of life and mealtime experience for residents. 

Supervisors: Adrienne Forsyth, Sharon Croxford, in collaboration with St Vincent’s Hospital
Contact: Adrienne Forsyth adrienne.forsyth@acu.edu.au
Campus: Melbourne

The Australian population is suffering from chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, Alzheimer’s disease and cancer. Meanwhile, a large number of in-vitro/in-vivo/clinical trials have reported and confirmed the prevention of such diseases through the dietary intake of food with some bioactive components such as polyphenols, carotenoids, vitamins, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs)-enriched oil and probiotics. However, these nutrients are susceptible to degradation and need to be protected and stabilised to ensure their delivery, while maintaining their physicochemical and biological functions. 

This project aims to develop a novel delivery system to stabilise susceptible nutrients and potentially improve their bioavailability. There is a possibility to expand this honours project into a collaboration work with industrial partners to solve real-world problems. 

Supervisor: Bo Wang
Contact: bo.wang@acu.edu.au
Campus: Melbourne and North Sydney

Melbourne (and Victoria) is known for its multiculturalism, with the majority of migrants in Australia living in Victoria. While there is a lag between the settlement of a new migrant group and established access to foods from the migrant groups traditional culinary culture, inevitably food stores, cafes and restaurants become open in areas where the migrant group settles. The aim of this project is to evaluate whether ‘ethnic’ eating establishments in neighbourhoods affect people’s perception of that ‘ethnic’ culture and cuisine. Do they help to build cultural literacy or tolerance? Do they help to establish social cohesion? Can they help to break down barriers? This research will start to answer some these questions.

Supervisors: Sharon Croxford & Emma Stirling
Contact: Sharon.croxford@acu.edu.au
Campus: Melbourne and North Sydney

Orthorexia nervosa (ON) is a pattern of eating behaviours characterized by a pathological fixation and an excessive control over the quality of the food eaten. ON is thought to be more prevalent in athletes and a risk factor for the development of eating disorders. Eating disorders and disordered eating patterns can have detrimental effects on the performance, health and well-being of athletes during and following their competitive sporting careers. This study will examine the relationship between ON and nutrition knowledge, dietary intake and food choice in elite student athletes.   

Supervisors: Francesco Foroni, Adrienne Forsyth, Ryan Tam
Contact: Francesco Foroni francesco.foroni@acu.edu.au
Campus: Melbourne and North Sydney

Building on a small project in 2016, this project aims to further explore the changes in culinary publications in relation to changes in the cultural diversity in Australia. Australia has a long history of migration with various groups migrating in significant numbers over the past 70-80 years. At the same time Australia has a strong history of culinary publications in newspapers, magazines and food and cook books. The project aims to bring these themes together to analyse culinary publications from a multicultural perspective and to explore representation of culture through these texts.

Supervisors: Sharon Croxford & Emma Stirling
Contact: Sharon.croxford@acu.edu.au
Campus: Melbourne and North Sydney

Culinary texts documenting ingredients and recipes have been produced in Australia for more than 150 years. The diet of Indigenous Australians prior to the arrival of Europeans consisted of a rich variety of native animals and plants. The diet of Europeans consisted of imported foods of limited variety, yet they did not enrich their supplies through exploitation of the locally available foods. The aim of the project is to explore the representation of native foods within culinary texts over the past 150 years.

Supervisors: Sharon Croxford & Emma Stirling
Contact: Sharon.croxford@acu.edu.au
Campus: Melbourne and North Sydney

Telehealth is an effective method of providing dietetic services. It is increasingly offered as a treatment option that may be preferred by patients with geographic or other constraints to face-to-face attendance, or those accessing frequent medical care, such as those attending radiotherapy and day chemotherapy services. The feasibility of providing dietetic services via telehealth should be assessed within the context of the health service and the community it serves. This project will involve small focus groups or interviews with individual patients to explore their perspectives of face-to-face versus video telehealth/telephone dietetic service for outpatients attending radiotherapy and day chemotherapy services. 

Supervisors: Adrienne Forsyth, Adam Walsh, in collaboration with St Vincent’s Hospital
Contact: Adrienne Forsyth adrienne.forsyth@acu.edu.au
Campus: Melbourne

Dietitians are often under-recognised members of palliative care teams. There is little research on dietetics in palliative care, and studies exploring dietitians' views have identified a need for research to establish evidence for this area of practice. Using a patient-centred approach to healthcare, patient views will be explored as a first step in establishing the importance of dietetic services. This project aims to understand patient perspectives on the role of the dietetic service in an inpatient palliative care service.

Supervisors: Adrienne Forsyth, Wendy Stuart-Smith, in collaboration with St Vincent’s Hospital
Contact: Adrienne Forsyth adrienne.forsyth@acu.edu.au
Campus: Melbourne