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 | Biography |  |
Dr Rebecca Abbott has a broad interest in physical activity in young children: what determines how active children are (barriers and facilitators), what activities children do, how it can be measured, and how the physical activity they engage in relates to their overall health and she is also interested in looking at sustainable strategies for increasing levels of physical activity. With a degree background in Nutrition and Dietetics (University of Surrey, UK 1989), Dr Abbott spent 4 years working at the Institute of Child Health in London, as a research dietitian in the International Child Health Research Group. In 1993, she moved to the MRC Dunn Nutrition Research Centre (Cambridge, UK) and was the Trials Co-ordinator on 5 major randomised outcome trials investigating the effects of early nutrition on later outcomes in health and development.
In 1997, Dr Abbott was awarded an Overseas Research Postgraduate Scholarship, and moved to the School of Human Movement Studies at Queensland University of Technology to undertake her PhD in “Physical activity in childhood and its relation to biochemical and physiological markers of cardiovascular health” (awarded 2000). On return to the UK, she took up a two year research fellow position in the Physical Activity Group at the Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge, investigating the effect (and measurement of) physical activity intervention in young adults at risk of diabetes and was involved in the design of new technology for measuring physical activity in young children. Since January 2002, Dr Abbott has been working as a post-doctoral research fellow at The University of Queensland, part-time at the School of Human Movement Studies (investigating children’s perceptions of physical activity and health in both rural and urban communities, as well as within indigenous communities) and part-time at the Children’s Nutrition Research Centre (creating and maintaining the National database for children in receipt of growth hormone around Australia).
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