Greening Minds and Bodies: Assessing the physical, psychological and environmental impacts of a plant-based diet intervention. MRC GW4 BioMed DTP iCASE PhD studentship 2025/26

Project Summary:

Are you passionate about the intersection of health, sustainability, and behaviour change? Join our cutting-edge research project to learn interdisciplinary skills and drive real-world change! This project examines the potential benefits of plant-based diets, which have 75% less environmental impact and could prevent 24% of premature deaths.

We’ll explore the effects of a temporary plant-based diet plus personalised feedback on health and environmental benefits in students in catered halls. We’ll examine effects on nutrition, environmental impact, physical and psychological health and assess the immediate and longer-term effects, while identifying the key challenges and enablers of adopting a plant-based diet.

Project Description:

Large reductions in meat and dairy intake are crucial to achieving population health and climate goals. Vegan diets, with 75% less environmental impact (Scarborough et al., 2023), could prevent 24% of premature deaths (Willett et al., 2019), and increase the proportion of adults (one-third) meeting recommended fruit and vegetable intake. Governments are keen to implement policies that promote plant-based diets to meet net-zero commitments and improve population health. Changing default meals (e.g., in university catered halls) and providing personal feedback on the health and environmental impact of diets are among the most effective strategies (Onwezen et al., 2024; Frie et al., 2022). This unique project will examine the effects of a temporary plant-based diet (i.e., Vegan for one month) in students on multiple outcomes including nutritional intake, environmental impact, physical and psychological health, and attitudes. Participants will receive personalized feedback on nutrition via an app developed by our commercial partner, Fueld (https://www.fueld.ai/). As an iCase studentship, Fueld will provide access to their app and will host the student for a 3-month placement where the student will develop distinctive data analysis and app development skills. The study will evaluate the effects during a one month intervention and at a six-month follow-up.

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