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Asked by anon-180743 to Abby, Amy, Noel, Sam, Viren on 12 Jun 2018.
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Abby Hunter answered on 12 Jun 2018:
I think all the topics that the other psychologists are researching are valuable, and can have a real impact on society. However I am passionate about my topic.Tobacco smoking remains the biggest preventable cause of ill health and mortality. Smoking in pregnancy is the most important preventable cause of adverse pregnancy outcomes. It can increase the risk of spontaneous abortions, stillbirth, preterm birth and fetal growth restriction. It can have long term effects on infants, such as neurodevelopmental disorders and cancers. Second-hand smoke exposure further increases the risk of sudden infant death syndrome as well as respiratory infections, slowed lung growth, and middle ear disease.
Currently around 18% of men and 15% of women in the UK smoke, and 1 in 10 pregnant women smoke. Therefore, it is a public health priority to find effective ways to help people quit smoking and remain abstinent in the long term, especially pregnant women.
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Noel Brick answered on 12 Jun 2018:
Everyone’s is going really great research, and it is so important. My research is on sport and exercise. So one thing I research is why people do and don’t exercise, and why exercise is important for our health. This is really important – exercise influences our physical and mental health in so many ways. My research also focuses on ways to make exercise feel easier. Again, this is important because we know people often stop exercising because it feels unpleasant and hard to do sometimes. So anything we can do to make exercise more fun and enjoyable really helps.
That said, exercise is only one aspect of our lifestyle. Other things like smoking, or alcohol consumption are all important and have negative effects on our health. So the research that others do in these areas are really important too! What is great about science is that we learn so much from others, even those researching something that might seem very different to our work. So it is all pretty valuable! -
Sam Burton answered on 13 Jun 2018:
All research is important, it can impact all walks of life and help further our understanding of so many topics.I am very passionate about alcohol research, and general research into drugs. Alcohol use varies so widely across cultures and genders for a variety of reasons and 56-58% of the UK regularly consume alcohol. Globally alcohol is the third leading risk factor for diseases. Therefore we really need to understand what causes people to consume alcohol to differing levels, and the health implications that result form it.
Particularly for those that are addicted, understanding the underlying cause can lead to better treatments for them. It can help the individual diagnosed, but those around them (family members) which can find it traumatic seeing a friend of family member live with such a condition. This can overlap with so many other things like if they smoke or any mental health condition, so all research is important. Hope this answers your question 🙂
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Amy Warnock answered on 13 Jun 2018:
As the others have said, all research is important, particularly as the research areas in this zone are so fantastically varied! I’m interested in obesity and what makes us overeat and change our food choices. Obesity is a huge problem in society but we actually still know very little about exactly what makes us overeat. Additionally, while dieting and exercise can help people lose weight in the short term, they’re not actually very effective in the long term so it’s really important to try and develop more effective treatments for obesity. I’m hoping that my research will help with developing more preventative strategies which might help slow the obesity crisis as this may be more effective that trying to develop treatments – because we still know so little about the huge variety of factors that can make us overeat its important to learn as much as possible!
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Viren Swami answered on 13 Jun 2018:
No one area of research is ever really going to be more valuable than another. That would be like asking whether my hand is more important than my foot – they do different things, so they’re not comparable in that sense. But if you were to ask me why my research area is valuable, I would say it’s because negative body image affects nearly everyone. In the UK, for example, the majority of people – particularly young people – experience some form of negative body image, whether that’s feeling anxious about their appearance, wanting to change how they look, or avoiding seeing friends because they feel bad about what they look like. And negative body image can have lots of negative outcomes too – people who suffer from negative body image are more likely to experience symptoms of depression, low self-esteem, and poor self-confidence, and are also more likely to develop an eating disorder. So finding ways to improve people’s body image is really important. And that’s what I spend most of my time doing. Sometimes the solution may be a lot simpler than most people think. For example, my research has shown that participating in dance or just spending time in nature can improve your body image. But I would also say that my research area is important because it shows the limits of what science can achieve on its own – ultimately, the issues I mentioned earlier have to be tackled through political and social initiatives, so my work helps to draw the links between what I do as a scientist and what we need to do as a society.
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