A/Prof Therese O'Sullivan
Associate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics
Research Overview
The first year of life is vital for a child's development, but it can also be one of the most stressful periods for parents. It's a time of many challenges: sleep issues, feeding problems, rapid growth, shifting to solid foods, developing relationships and more.
However, despite the importance and difficulty of this period, parents say there is very little support when their babies are between 4 and 12 months old, as there are no scheduled child health nurse visits during this time.
A/Prof O'Sullivan's project aims to investigate different types of supports for parents over this period to see which are most effective in improving a range of outcomes. These outcomes include parenting confidence, parenting stress, the parent-child relationship and establishing healthy habits, specifically around meal environment and food intake.
Three different styles of parenting workshops will be run for families over two time points, the first set of workshops in infancy and the second set in early toddlerhood. A/Prof O'Sullivan hypothesises that this early intervention will set parents up for the best chance of success by establishing strong relationships and healthy routines from the start. This work aligns with East Metro’s current Obesity Prevention Strategy, which specifically highlights the importance of preventing weight gain, providing support for parents and babies during the critical period of the first 1000 days of life, and trialling new interventions that can be integrated across the community.