Managing what you eat for your health by Professor Alison Coates

A free public lecture brought to you by UniSA Mount Gambier. Presented by Professor Alison Coates, UniSA Allied Health & Human Performance. 

Alison is a Professor in Human Nutrition and Dean of Research in Allied Health and Human Performance at the University of South Australia. Her research focuses on dietary strategies to improve cardiovascular and metabolic function with a focus on bioactive nutrients in foods and supplements, as well as the impact of altered timing of eating. Alison has worked on numerous dietary intervention trials over the past 20 years and is currently working on weight loss trials in adults focused on a wide range of health outcomes.

Dietary recommendations have traditionally focussed on what people should be eating but when people eat, including the time of day, how frequently they eat, and how regular the pattern of eating is over the week can also influence health.

Our biological processes are aligned with out body clock that is regulated by the light/dark cycle. This means that typically we eat during the day and fast overnight when we sleep. However, in some instances, such as working night shift, people are forced to be awake and work at night and this pattern typically also leads to a shift in the timing of their food intake.

This presentation will look at patterns of eating when people work different shifts, how eating at night changes how the body can use energy from food, provide some tips around strategies to manage food intake and hunger and to help manage weight when working at night.