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Dr Helen Coulthard

Job: Senior Lecturer

Faculty: Health and Life Sciences

School/department: School of Applied Social Sciences

Address: De Montfort, University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH.

T: +44 (0)116 207 8828

E: hcoulthard@dmu.ac.uk

W: /hls

 

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Personal profile

A developmental psychologist who is primarily interested in the development of eating behaviour and psychopathology. Particular areas of interest include fruit and vegetable consumption, and food neophobia, throughout the lifespan.

Dr Coulthard's research centres on furthering understanding of the strategies that relate to increasing healthy food consumption, including exposure, modelling, restriction, pressure, as well as individual characteristics which contribute to pathology, such as anxiety and sensory processing.

She is also interested in the early predictors of problematic eating behaviour in later life.

Research group affiliations

Psychology

Publications and outputs


  • dc.title: The Development of the Food AVERSE Questionnaire: a measure of food avoidance in children with and without Autistic Spectrum Conditions dc.contributor.author: Coulthard, Helen; Harris, Gillian; Pomoni, Maria dc.description.abstract: The aim of this study was to 1) develop a measure of avoidant eating behaviours for both typically developing children (TD), and those with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC), and 2) to examine whether these current behaviours are associated with reports of early feeding difficulties in both populations. In study one (n=336) parents of 4-14 year old children completed a series questions about food avoidance. Three subscales of food avoidance were identified with a total scale of 31 items; avoidant, rigid-inflexible, and texture sensitive. Analyses found that scores on these subscales were associated with related measures of picky eating, food neophobia, sensory sensitivity and cognitive inflexibility, as well as lower fruit, vegetable, dairy and protein consumption. In study two, 225 children aged 4-14 years and their parents were recruited (143 TD and 78 ASC). Children with ASC were more likely to have feeding problems during the transition to family foods and in the toddler eating period in comparison to TD children. Additionally, children with ASC showed, at the time of the study, higher avoidance, rigid-inflexible eating and texture sensitive eating behaviours than TD children. This study has developed a reliable scale for food avoidance for children with and without ASC diagnoses. Food avoidance is more severe in children with ASC than in TD children and these difficulties may start prior to them receiving an ASC diagnosis. Further work is needed to examine the usefulness of this scale in clinical and non-clinical populations. dc.description: open access article 鈼� The Food AVERSE questionnaire is a novel scale to measure avoidant eating behaviours in children with and without ASC 鈼� The Food AVERSE questionnaire comprises three factors; food avoidance, rigid-inflexible and texture sensitive 鈼� Children with ASC had higher scores on the Food AVERSE Questionnaire, and were also reported to have more problems with feeding prior to their diagnosis. 鈼� This scale can be used in clinical and non-clinical samples of children to measure different aspects of food avoidance

  • dc.title: Portion Estimation, Satiety Perception and Energy Intake Following Different Breakfast Portion Sizes in Healthy Adults dc.contributor.author: Kwiecien, Kinga; Santos-Merx, Lourdes; Sahota, Tarsem; Coulthard, Helen; Da Boit, Mariasole dc.description.abstract: Expected satiety is a key element in predicting meal portion size and food consumption; however, how this can be affected by different breakfast portion sizes is unknown. The study examined the impact of different breakfast portions on satiety, portion size, and energy intake and comprised an online survey and an experimental intervention. Sixteen adults (9 women, BMI: 24.9鈥壜扁��4.3鈥塳g/m2) rated images of three portion sizes (small, standard, large) of the same breakfast using an ordinal scale. Subsequently, they were asked to self-prepare and consume ad libitum the three breakfast portions in a randomised order on different days and to complete a food diary. Satiety and portion size perception were re-measured upon consumption of each breakfast. For both the visual image and breakfast consumption, the small breakfast portion was rated as the smallest and least filling, while the large portion was rated as the largest and most filling (p鈥�<鈥�0.05). When consuming the small breakfast, participants reported being hungrier and less full between breakfast and lunch (p鈥�<鈥�0.05) and had a higher energy intake from lunch onward, due to more snacking (p鈥�<鈥�0.05). However, the total daily energy intake was not different among the three breakfast portion sizes. Individuals seemed accustomed to predicting satiety and portion size from images. The consumption of the small breakfast was judged as not filling enough and was accompanied by a higher energy intake via energy-dense snacks. Based on these preliminary findings, breakfast size reduction may lead to unhealthy compensatory energy intake by snacking on energy-dense foods. dc.description: open access article

  • dc.title: Music as an alternative self-regulation strategy to snack foods following a negative mood induction in 5-7-year-old children: Interactions with parental use of food as a reward dc.contributor.author: Coulthard, Helen; Van den Tol, Annemieke J. M.; Jeffers, Shavez; Ryan, Sean dc.description.abstract: This study aimed to extend studies that have looked at snack food consumption following a negative mood induction, and examine whether listening to a happy song would counteract these effects in children. A second aim was to examine whether parental feeding practices (use of food as a reward and the use of food to regulate emotions) and child Body Mass Index (BMI) would moderate any differences. Eighty 5-7-year-old children took part in a negative mood induction and were then assigned to either a happy music condition or a silent control condition. The weight (g) consumed of four snack foods was measured (fruit hearts, crisps, chocolate biscuits, and breadsticks). Parents filled in baseline measures of feeding practices. There were no significant differences in food consumption between conditions. There was, however, a significant interaction between the high use of food as a reward and the condition on the amount of food eaten. In particular, following a negative -mood induction, those children whose parents reported using food as a reward and who were in the silent condition ate significantly more snack foods. There were no significant interactions with child BMI or with parental use of food to regulate emotions. This research suggests that the use of certain parental strategies may influence how children respond to novel emotion regulation techniques. Further research is needed to evaluate the best types of music to regulate emotions in children, and whether parents can be encouraged to replace maladaptive feeding practices with more adaptive non-food practices. dc.description: open access article

  • dc.title: Eating in the lockdown during the Covid 19 pandemic; self-reported changes in eating behaviour, and associations with BMI, eating style, coping and health anxie