This project will involve (1) developing a method to calculate the environmental impact of a person's diet, (2) calculating the EAT-Lancet index (reflecting adherence to 'planetary health' recommendations) of UK diets, and (3) investigating the relationships between environmental impact, planetary health and diet quality in UK adult diets.
Department: Food & Nutritional Sciences
Supervised by: Dr Michelle Weech
Reducing the environmental impact of our diets may help address climate change as agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe). A database estimating the environmental impact of UK food products was recently created by University of Oxford researchers (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2120584119). It includes data for four environmental factors (GHGe, eutrophication potential, land use and water scarcity), which generate an overall environmental impact score per product. University of Reading (UoR) nutritionists and biomedical engineers created the eNutri web app, which includes an online food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Users report how often they consumed each food/drink item during the previous 4 weeks and their typical portion sizes. eNutri automatically calculates their nutritional intakes and assesses the 'healthiness' of their diets using a diet quality score. The first project objective is to map the Oxford sustainability data onto the 165 eNutri FFQ items, then incorporate this data into eNutri (by specifying requirements to the software developer) to calculate the environmental impact of existing (and future) users' diets. Recently, the EAT-Lancet Commission created a 'planetary health diet' reflecting a healthy diet from an environmentally sustainable food system (https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/). This was developed into a score to quantify adherence to these dietary recommendations (https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqab369). The second objective is to calculate the EAT-Lancet Index for existing eNutri datasets. The third objective is to analyse the data generated above to investigate the hypothesis that lower dietary environmental impact is associated with the healthiest diets (i.e., greatest diet quality) and greatest adherence to the EAT-Lancet Index.
1. Mapping data from the environmental impact database onto the 165 eNutri food and drink items (for example, identifying GHGe for 'whole milk' on the environmental impact database and transferring this value to 'whole milk' on the eNutri food and drink database). 2. Specifying requirements to the software developer for calculation of the environmental impact of app users' diets and generation of environmental impact data for existing eNutri datasets (approximately 140 UK adults). 3. Manually calculating the EAT-Lancet diet index for the same existing eNutri datasets using their mean daily nutrient and food group intakes. 4. Statistical analysis to characterise the environmental impact of UK adults' diets and investigate their associations with the EAT-Lancet diet index and the 'healthiness' of these diets.
1. Some knowledge of human nutrition and methods of dietary assessment 2. Good familiarity with foods typically consumed in a UK diet (this knowledge is required to work independently on mapping food items accurately from the environmental impact database onto the eNutri FFQ) 3. Some experience of using Microsoft Excel (ability to create formulas on Excel is preferable but not essential) 4. Ability to communicate well (the student should be willing to ask questions and contribute to project discussions in the small research group)
1. Knowledge about and experience with current/topical approaches to assessing the environmental impact of diets and diet quality scores 2. Statistical analysis 3. Scientific writing 4. Experience of working in an interdisciplinary research team (including academics, post-doctoral research fellow, PhD student and software developer) 5. Experience of the app development and testing process 6. Communication (written and verbal) 7. Advancing Excel skills 8. Handling of large datasets
Due to the online nature of the project, the student can mostly work remotely (e.g., at home), and our multidisciplinary weekly group meetings are held on MS Teams. The student would have the option of working in the Harry Nursten PC room (Whiteknights campus).
37.5 per week
Monday 05 June 2023 - Friday 21 July 2023
The deadline to apply for this opportunity is Monday 3rd April 2023. Students should submit their CV and Cover Letter directly to the Project Supervisor (click on supervisor name at the top of the page for email). Successful candidates will be invited for an interview.