Participate in our studies
Decoding the drivers of food choices
Our vision is to empower Australians to make healthier food choices by improving knowledge about the impacts of unhealthy foods and the obesogenic environment and developing targeted behavioural interventions. We are looking for participants with excess weight and obesity who want to participate in an online survey and laboratory study that will improve knowledge into the drivers of unhealthy food choices and inform research on novel treatments. If you are interested, please sign up to available studies below.
FoodCODE study
We aim to develop a more nuanced understanding of eating patterns by identifying unique groupings of environmental, behavioural, and psychosocial characteristics that might coincide with a greater risk of engaging in the overconsumption of food. We ask you to complete some online questionnaires which ask you to reflect on your behaviour and experiences regarding food and related behaviours (~ 20 minutes to complete). If you are eligible, we will contact you to confirm your eligibility with a standardised interview protocol, which we will organise to take place over the phone or Zoom at a time that is convenient to you (~20 minutes to complete). We will also ask you to engage in some simple online cognitive tasks, which will involve making keyboard responses to stimuli (~40 minutes to complete). We may contact you to invite you to complete some further research tasks in our laboratory facilities at Monash University Clayton campus, or Turner Clinics and the BASE facility (close to Clayton Campus). This will involve a session that will take around 3 hours to complete, which will involve:
- A battery of surveys which will ask you questions about your food, alcohol, and drug consumption patterns and your physical and mental health
- A biometric assessment, which will involve measuring your body composition (including your height and weight), measuring blood pressure and heart rate, collecting a small amount of blood from a fingerpick test, and collecting a hair sample,
- A general cognition battery, that assesses reasoning skills, processing speed, and memory
- (A decision-making battery, which will involve completing computer tasks that involve making decisions about a stimulus in a variety of circumstances
We may also subsequently invite you to other related studies, for which we will provide more details and ask you to provide written consent separately. Follow this link to learn more and complete the eligibility survey for this study.
If you are interested in participating in learning about future studies associated with this project, please email Justin Mahlberg for more information.
The neural drivers of food choice
We aim to improve our understanding of consumption behaviours by interrogating the neurobiology that underlies decisions and consumption reactions during food choices using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We are specifically interested in how these brain mechanisms might change with our diet and weight.
- Young adults (aged 18-24) needed for brain imaging study. Drink beer for research! This study investigates how diet influences the brain’s response to alcohol. In a 3-hour morning testing session at Monash Biomedical Imaging (just opposite the Clayton Campus), we will provide you with breakfast, ask you to complete some questionnaires and assessment tasks, and then you will undergo a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, during which you will complete a task where you will earn sips of beer based on your performance. You will be reimbursed $50 for your time. You can view an advertisement for this study here . You can find out more information & fill out the eligibility questionnaire here. If you have any questions, you can contact Emily.
