UCL DEPARTMENT OF EPIDEMIOLOGY AND PUBLIC HEALTH
HEALTH BEHAVIOUR RESEARCH CENTRE
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Dr Lucy Cooke
Senior Research Associate

EXPERTISE
Children's food preferences and eating habits, childhood obesity.

RESEARCH
Research interests
  • Development and modification of children's food preferences
  • The impact of the family food environment on children's eating habits
  • Design of effective dietary interventions
Previous research
Previous research has included a large-scale survey examining the factors associated with fruit and vegetable consumption in preschoolers, a school-based questionnaire study of food preferences in 5-16 year-olds and a trial of the effectiveness of an exposure-based intervention, carried out by parents in the home, in increasing children's acceptance of a previously disliked vegetable.

Current research
POPPETS Study: The first part of the study is a large-scale community survey to assess the family environment correlates of healthy dietary choices in preschool children (including parental nutrition knowledge, feeding practices, social norms, availability of foods, meal patterns and snacking rules). In the next stage we shall develop interventions to modify aspects of the home food environment and assess their impact on food choices. Ultimately these will be combined to create a disseminable intervention that health professionals can be trained to deliver.

Current grants
A proposal for a series of studies investigating the impact of incentives on children's food choices is currently under review at the MRC.

BIOGRAPHY
Academic appointments
2007 - Senior Research Associate, Health Behaviour Research Centre,
           UCL Epidemiology & Public Health
2000 - 2007 Research Associate, Health Behaviour Research Centre, UCL,
           Epidemiology & Public Health

Qualifications
2007 PhD in Psychology, University College London
2000 MSc in Health Psychology, University College London
1998 BSc Psychology, University College London

Other
Chartered Health Psychologist
Member, Association for the Study of Obesity
Member, British Psychological Association, Division of Health Psychology

PUBLICATIONS

This page last modified 25 May, 2010 by Mark Livermore

Lucy Cooke
CONTACT DETAILS
Telephone:

+44 (0)20 7679 1615
Internal: x41615
Fax:
++44 (0)20 7679 8354
Email: lucy.cooke@ucl.ac.uk

Postal address: Health Behaviour Research Centre, Department of Epidemiology & Public Health,
UCL, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

Office: Room 218,
1-19 Torrington Place,
WC1E 7HB

University College London- Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT - Telephone: +44 (0)20 7679 1720 - © 2012 UCL


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