Research

Happy, healthy mealtimes

LUCRED was launched three years ago with a clear aim – to make a real difference to how eating disorders and childhood eating behaviour are understood and treated. Headed by Dr Caroline Meyer, it’s one of the largest centres in its field with 16 full-time academics and researchers, and its own fully equipped children’s laboratory.

The centre has established close collaborative links with experts across the UK and globally, including the NHS eating disorders services at Leicester General Hospital, the Queen Elizabeth Psychiatric Hospital, Birmingham, the Institute of Psychiatry in London, South Staffordshire Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service and the University of Sydney. This has resulted in significant collaborations between academics and clinicians.

"People tend to restrict high sugar, high fat foods, so when children have free access to these foods, they are likely to eat more of them."

The team at LUCRED have worked with thousands of families during their extensive careers. They currently have several hundred volunteers, aged from birth to adolescence and beyond, participating in current research.

Dr Emma Haycraft and her colleagues Dr Claire Farrow and Dr Terry Dovey, specialise in childhood eating patterns, what influences them, and how eating behaviour can be adapted to encourage good food choices.

Dr Haycraft said: “We are very much in tune with concerns in society surrounding childhood eating and behaviour. These concerns, which are on the rise, are our motivation for the work that we do.

“We conduct translational research that has a real-life outcome, and clear implications for parents. We hope to make a difference by coming up with some straight forward strategies that parents can implement fairly simply in order to promote healthy eating behaviours.”