Volunteers required for 'Juicy June' diet challenge

8 May 2013

Researchers from the Department for Health are looking for volunteers to take part in a study investigating whether giving up an unhealthy eating habit and replacing it with a new healthy habit (such as eating a piece of fruit) for a month could improve general health and diet.

The team is looking for women and men of all ages, shapes and sizes to take part in this trial.

Dorota Juszczyk, a PhD student in the Department is leading the study. She commented: “We know that campaigns like Dry January or Dryathlon, where people stop drinking alcohol for a month work; but we do not know if a similar campaign might work to help people eat more healthily?”

Volunteers that take part in the study will be required to complete an online diet questionnaire; this will enable a diet assessment to be performed and personalised feedback given.

Based on the diet feedback, participants will then receive some help in deciding what habits they might try to change. They will also receive tips on how they can make this change.

Participants will be asked to continue with the habit replacement for 30 days and monitor their progress (for example using the Juicy June calendar). At the end of the trial participants will be asked to fill in a second diet questionnaire, so that the researchers can provide feedback on their overall performance and also evaluate the study.

Benefits of participation include feedback on diet and snack consumption (before and after the trial), improvement in the diet and hopefully having some fun from taking part!

Participate in this study

If you would like to participate in this study please register before the 31 May 2013 to ensure you can start the challenge on the 1 June.

You can register online or through Facebook.

If you would like to find out more about the study then contact Dorota Juszczyk. Email: dj266@bath.ac.uk