I'm an associate professor (docent) and my main research focus is on different aspects of children's food habits. For many years my main focus has been on school lunch.
I'm an associate professor (docent) and my main research focus is on different aspects of children's food habits. For many years my main focus has been on school lunch. I am also involved in a research project where a Paleolithic diet and exercise is tested on adults with type 2 diabetes. I mainly teach in classes regarding children's food habits, dietary assessment methods and scientific methods. In 2018 I was rewarded with a price from "Kunliga Skytteanska Samfundet" which is a price that a young, successful researcher at Umeå University receives.
Research and research supervision
Year 2011 I defended my thesis called "Dietary and metabolic effects of a 2-year lifestyle intervention on overweight and obese children" which had the aim to prevent further development of overweight and obesity among children. This was a randomized controlled trial where we worked with improvement of food and physical activity habits and to strengthen the children's self-esteem.
Since year 2012 I am responsible for the Swedish part of a research project called ProMeal (Prospects for Promoting Health and Performance by School Meals in Nordic Countries) which is a Nordic collaboration project where Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland are included. The general aim is to determine whether overall healthiness of the diet and learning conditions in children can be improved by school lunches, and to capture the main concerns regarding school lunches among children in a Nordic context. In this study we have used a photographic method to study the pupil's dietary intake during lunch, a method which has been validated within the study. This project is partly financed by NordForsk.
Within the ProMeal-study I am the main supervisor for PhD-student Linda Berggren. She has a focus on the pupil's experience of the school meal. Linda has worked with focus group interviews, empathy based stories and will continue her studies by looking at teacher's experience of pedagogical meals.
Since year 2015 my research time is partly financed by Umeå School of Education where I conduct research about school meals and how school leaders view the school meal in relation to the school's systematic quality assurance work. I also do research about pedagogical meals.
Apart from the above I am also involved in a research project called URAX, a randomized controlled trial with the aim to evaluate the effect of a Paleolithic diet and exercise on different health parameters among adults with type 2 diabetes. In this study I am responsible for the diet intervention and the evaluation of dietary intake.
Teaching
I teach in courses on basic and advanced levels and my main focus is on children's food habits, dietary assessment methods and scientific methods. I also supervise and examine thesis work at basic and advanced levels.
Leadership
During 2019-2021 I was the head of department and during the years 2014-2018 I was the assistant head of department and responsible for the research.
