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Sara Styles imageBSc(Salem) MSc(Marywood) PhD(Otago)

Email sara.styles@otago.ac.nz

Dr Sara Styles is a lecturer in the Department of Human Nutrition with a background in psychology, behavioural nutrition, and public health. Her research focuses on understanding and promoting health and well-being across the life course, particularly among people living with Type 1 diabetes.

Dr Styles has led research validating a snacking questionnaire for New Zealand youth with Type 1 diabetes and led an optimisation trial—funded by Lottery Health Research—using the Multiphase Optimisation Strategy (MOST) to engineer a self-management intervention targeting glucose monitoring, snacking, sleep, and motivation in this population. This work contributes to a growing body of evidence supporting personalised, behaviourally-informed strategies to improve glycaemic control in young people.

Dr Styles’ current collaborations span diverse and meaningful topics, including: increasing access to developmentally appropriate, engaging, and culturally responsive educational resources for adolescents and young adults diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes; reducing food waste in aged care; exploring weight stigma experiences among Pacific women; investigating the use of continuous glucose monitors in athletes at risk of low energy availability; developing an intervention to prevent low energy availability in adolescent athletes in Indonesia; understanding adolescents’ experiences of nutrition education in clinical care for Type 1 diabetes; exploring gardening practices among Māori kaumātua; and examining nutrition-related experiences among individuals undergoing colorectal cancer treatment.

She brings extensive expertise in the design and evaluation of behaviour change interventions and is skilled in both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, including surveys, feasibility studies, randomised controlled trials, and qualitative descriptive studies.

Before relocating to New Zealand in 2012, Sara worked as a Health Programme Specialist for the Broome County Office for Aging (New York, USA), where she led community nutrition education and co-delivered interventions aimed at fall prevention and diabetes self-management among older adults.

Sara welcomes postgraduate students with an interest in behavioural nutrition.

Memberships

  • Association for Contextual Behavioral Science
  • Nutrition Society of New Zealand

Current postgraduate students

PhD

  • Elena Piere. Understanding and reducing food waste in aged care (co-supervisor).
  • Penny Matkin-Hussey. Continuous glucose monitoring (CGMs) as a novel tool for Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) (co-supervisor).
  • Rahadyana Muslichah. Development of a nutrition intervention for adolescent athletes at risk of low energy availability (LEA) in Indonesia (co-supervisor).

Master of Health Sciences

  • Lana Puru. Ka whakatewhatewha te tautīnei ā-kai ki whānau Māori. Exploration of sustainable nutritious kai for whānau Māori (primary supervisor).
  • Vanessa Knowles. Examining dietary influences in colorectal cancer patients receiving chemoradiotherapy at Christchurch Oncology Service (primary supervisor).

Master of Medical Science

  • Jessica Wong. Diabetes-related technology (co-supervisor).

Master of Dietetics

  • Elti Sannyasi (Massey University). Weight stigma and bias in healthcare in Aotearoa: Pacific women’s voices (co-supervisor).

Recent graduates

  • Hannah Martin, PhD 2025. Change in motivational profiles for eating behaviour over five years in New Zealand women and their associations with intuitive eating (primary supervisor).
  • Mona Elbalshy, PhD 2024. Investigating a new Type 1 Diabetes glucose monitoring technology and its impact on children and their families (co-supervisor).
  • Ioanna Katiforis, PhD 2024. Impact of living in a food insecure household on New Zealand infants 7.0-9.9 months of age and their primary carer (co-supervisor).
  • Shelley Rose, PhD 2024. The role and impact of glucose monitoring technology in youth with Type 1 Diabetes (co-supervisor).
  • Melanie Thompson, PhD 2021. Changes in intuitive eating in mid-age New Zealand women: A mixed-methods study (primary supervisor).
  • Olivia Coady, MHealSc 2023. The barriers and facilitators in adhering to the New Zealand Healthy Food and Drink Guidance-Schools (2020) in New Zealand Secondary School Canteens (co-supervisor).
  • Brooke Marsters, BMedSc(Hons) 2020. Flash glucose monitoring among youth with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus: cutaneous adverse events and sensor longevity (co-supervisor).
  • Grace Macaulay, BMedSc(Hons) 2018. Sleep disturbance in children and adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus and their parents (co-supervisor).

Publications

Coady, O. R., Styles, S. E., & Smith, C. (2025). Barriers and enablers to providing healthy food and beverages in New Zealand secondary school canteens. Health Promotion International, 40, daaf011. doi: 10.1093/heapro/daaf011 Journal - Research Article

Styles, S. E., Haszard, J. J., Rose, S., Galland, B. C., Wiltshire, E. J., de Bock, M. I., Ketu-Mckenzie, M., … Wong, J., … Wheeler, B. J. (2025). Developing a multicomponent intervention to increase glucose time in range in adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes: An optimisation trial to screen continuous glucose monitoring, sleep extension, healthier snacking and values-guided self-management intervention components. Contemporary Clinical Trials, 152, 107864. doi: 10.1016/j.cct.2025.107864 Journal - Research Article

Katiforis, I., Smith, C., Haszard, J. J., Styles, S. E., Leong, C., Taylor, R. W., … Daniels, L., … Rowan, M., … McLean, N. H., Cox, A. M., … Bruckner, B. R., … Heath, A.-L. M. (2025). Household food insecurity and novel complementary feeding methods in New Zealand families. Maternal & Child Nutrition, 21(1), e13715. doi: 10.1111/mcn.13715 Journal - Research Article

Zhou, Y., Wheeler, B. J., Boucsein, A., Styles, S. E., Chamberlain, B., Michaels, V. R., … Wiltshire, E. J., … Jefferies, C. A. (2024). Use of Freestyle Libre 2.0 in children with type 1 diabetes mellitus and elevated HbA(1c): Extension phase results after a 12-week randomized controlled trial. Diabetic Medicine. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1111/dme.15494 Journal - Research Article

Lai, S.-t. T., Styles, S. E., Boucsein, A., Zhou, Y., Michaels, V., Jefferies, C., Wiltshire, E., De Bock, M. I., & Wheeler, B. J. (2024). Parental perspectives following the implementation of advanced hybrid closed-loop therapy in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes and elevated glycaemia. Diabetic Medicine. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1111/dme.15448 Journal - Research Article

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