Guest Information
Rebecca Leech, PhD
Dr. Rebecca Leech is a Registered Nutritionist and Nutritional Epidemiologist, based at Deakin’s Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition.
Rebecca has a PhD in Nutritional Epidemiology, and in 2018, was awarded an Alfred Deakin Medal for her doctoral thesis, which examined adults’ eating patterns and their associations with diet quality and obesity.
Her postdoctoral research, extends on this, and applies novel analytic approaches to understand determinants of food intake at eating occasions and the role of eating patterns in cardiometabolic health in adults.
Dr. Leech is funded by an Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Fellowship and received category 1 funding from the National Heart Foundation (NHF) Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2019.
She is also the Student Mentoring Chair for the Nutrition Society of Australia.
In this episode we discuss:
- Defining eating occasions in research
- Variance in methodology used to determine meal patterning
- Why it is important to consider dietary intake at the level of meals
- Potential benefits of a meal-based approach over a food-based framework
- The relationship between meal patterning, nutrient intake and overall diet quality
- Challenges in determining the relationship between eating patterns and health outcomes
- Health impacts in different distributions of calories across the day
- Chrononutrition research
- Clustering of diet, physical activity and sedentary behaviour
Links & Resources
- Leech et al., 2017 - Temporal eating patterns: associations with nutrient intakes, diet quality, and measures of adiposity
- Leech et al., 2015 - Understanding meal patterns: definitions, methodology and impact on nutrient intake and diet quality
- Leech et al., 2018 - The role of energy intake and energy misreporting in the associations between eating patterns and adiposity
- Leech et al., 2015 - Characterizing eating patterns: a comparison of eating occasion definitions
- Podcast: Understanding Causality in Nutrition Science
Fan of the Podcast?
If you regularly enjoy listening to Sigma Nutrition Radio and you'd like to take your support even further, then you can officially support the podcast on Patreon. You can pledge $1 per episode, and cancel at any time. If you'd prefer not to pledge a recurring payment, but instead send a one-time tip/donation, you can do so here.
Thank you for considering!