Rate My Professor Sara Styles

Dr. Sara Styles is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Human Nutrition at the University of Otago. She earned a BSc from Salem State University, an MSc from Marywood University, and a PhD from the University of Otago in Human Nutrition and Preventive and Social Medicine. Her academic background encompasses psychology, behavioural nutrition, and public health. Prior to her current role, she served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Otago from August 2016 to February 2020. Before relocating to New Zealand in 2012, Dr. Styles worked as a Health Programme Specialist for the Broome County Office for Aging in New York, USA, leading community nutrition education programs and co-delivering interventions for fall prevention and diabetes self-management among older adults. Her research specializes in the development and evaluation of behaviour change interventions to promote health and well-being across the life course, with a particular emphasis on people living with Type 1 diabetes. Notable projects include validating a snacking questionnaire for New Zealand youth with Type 1 diabetes and leading a Lottery Health Research-funded optimisation trial using the Multiphase Optimisation Strategy to engineer a self-management intervention addressing glucose monitoring, snacking, sleep, and motivation, contributing to personalised strategies for improved glycaemic control.

Dr. Styles' ongoing collaborations cover diverse areas such as enhancing culturally responsive educational resources for adolescents and young adults with Type 2 diabetes, reducing food waste in aged care facilities, exploring weight stigma experiences among Pacific women, investigating continuous glucose monitors in athletes at risk of low energy availability, developing interventions to prevent low energy availability in adolescent athletes in Indonesia, understanding adolescents' nutrition education experiences in Type 1 diabetes clinical care, examining gardening practices among Māori kaumātua, and assessing nutrition-related experiences in colorectal cancer treatment. She is proficient in qualitative and quantitative methodologies, including surveys, feasibility studies, randomised controlled trials, and qualitative descriptive studies. Key publications include 'Navigating infant feeding in the context of household food insecurity: A qualitative study of New Zealand mothers' (Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 2026), 'Barriers and enablers to providing healthy food and beverages in New Zealand secondary school canteens' (Health Promotion International, 2025), 'Household food insecurity, nutrient intakes and BMI in New Zealand infants' (Public Health Nutrition, 2025), 'The effect of do-it-yourself real-time continuous glucose monitoring on psychosocial outcomes in adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes' (Pediatric Diabetes, 2022), and 'Do-it-yourself continuous glucose monitoring in people aged 12-25 years with type 1 diabetes' (Diabetic Medicine, 2024). Her scholarship has garnered over 800 citations, influencing behavioural nutrition and diabetes management.