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Academic Profile – Dr Eleanor Bryant 

Exploring the psychology of eating and young people's mental health 

Dr Eleanor Bryant, Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences, was co-lead on a recent successful £2.5 million bid to develop a community programme examining mental health challenges in young people in the region. Here we find out about this project and her other research interests, which include the psychology of eating behaviour, appetite and diet... 

How did you get started in your career, and how did you come to Bradford? 

I did my Psychology degree at the University of Leeds, having had a passion for mental health and the ambition to be a psychologist since the age of 15 when I worked with a self-help group. Following my degree, I worked for Mind and as an Assistant Clinical Psychologist in CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) working with children and young people, which was extremely challenging as the system was overprescribed even then (around 20 years ago), so I decided to try an alternative path examining the things that positively influence our health. 

This led to my PhD titled ‘Understanding Disinhibition and its Influences on Eating Behaviour and Appetite’ which focused on the impact of psychological eating behaviour traits on the biopsychology of appetite regulation and body weight, at the University of Leeds. Soon after that I secured a lectureship here at the University of Bradford and have chosen to stay here. 

Profile picture of Dr Eleanor Bryant

Dr Eleanor Bryant

Can you describe some of your research highlights? 

My research has taken me around the world. I have worked with colleagues in Australia, Canada, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Brazil, Romania to name a few, on a range of projects. As well as working with colleagues across the UK in Oxford, Leeds, Nottingham, Manchester, Newcastle and others. I have also worked with some amazing PhD students too, who have gone on to do super things in their careers.

When I first came to Bradford, I set up the Eating Behaviour Lab to carry out my research. As a result of this, I ran an event called ‘Eat Yourself Happy’ as part of the British Science Festival, hosted at the University in 2011. This got a lot of attention, and led to a range of invitations to do talks across Europe on the subject. I’ve also contributed to articles for the national press on the psychology of eating, including burnout and stress eating, the dangers of ultra-processed foods, weight loss injections, and commensality (eating and drinking as a social activity). 

Another highlight would be developing the Child Three-Factor Eating questionnaire looking at psychological eating behaviour traits in children and adolescents. This has been used in academia and clinical trials internationally and translated and validated in five languages, with more translations in the works. 

The Continuing Bonds – Dying to Talk project with Professor Karina Croucher and Dr Jane Booth from the University of Wolverhampton was the first time I used co-production with young people as a research method. I was amazed at how comfortable young people were talking about death and dying. The young people were able to co-create materials to help their peers think and talk about death, dying and bereavement. A toolkit for teachers was also created to help facilitate discussions around death, this included a video the young people filmed which featured archaeological objects and engaging activites. This has been used in secondary schools and has had great feedback from teachers and students alike. The project produced other materials as well, like a little story book about death aimed at young children, plus colouring books and recipe books. 

Young people taking part in the Dying to Talk project

You recently co-led a successful £2.5 million National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Mental Health Research Leader Award bid, can you tell us about this? 

We are part of a strong network of organisations dedicated to improving health outcomes in our region, and talking to connections at Born in Bradford led us to submit a bid for this award, which was initially for £11 million. We had three months and worked really hard to develop a proposal resulting in an invitation to an interview to present it to NIHR. The outcome was that we were invited to resubmit to a different award and were successful in a £2.5 million bid to fund a programme to work with communities, education, health, and religious groups to tackle mental health challenges in the region, focusing on children from 3-11 years old. We’re also looking to establish a framework that will enable us to seek the full £11 million funding in a couple of years, to further develop the programme. 

We’re recruiting for roles for the project now and anticipate we’ll be starting officially within the next three months. We’ll be implementing training programmes and carrying out some groundwork research to understand what the priorities are statistically, from the viewpoint of the community, and our partners, about what needs to be tackled in children and young people's mental health, and where we can make the most impact in preventing problems before they arise. 

We’re excited to work with our community partners including NHS groups, Mind, Born in Bradford, Age of Wonder, Bradford Council and more who have all pledged their support, which is super because tackling these challenges in children and young people is going to be really impactful and meaningful. It’s also been possible because of the absolutely phenomenal contributions from the team of people here - colleagues in Psychology (Dr Paul Sullivan, Dr Lucy Eddy and Dr Syka Iqbal), the Faculty of Health Studies and beyond, and in Research and Innovation Services. Our biggest successes have been because of collaboration and excellent teamwork.