Professor Geraldine McNeill

MB ChB, MSc, PhD, RNutr (Public Health), FAfN

Emeritus Professor

Email Address: g.mcneill@abdn.ac.uk
Office Address: Polwarth Building 1:069, Foresterhill, Aberdeen AB25 2ZD
School/Department: School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition

Biography

Geraldine's interest in Nutrition was aroused during higher education in Medicine and Physical Anthropology at the Universities of Cambridge and Birmingham and a year spent as a volunteer with Save the Children Fund on a Mother and Child health and nutrition project in Burkina Faso, W. Africa. She undertook an MSc in Human Nutrition at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine followed by a PhD project on socio-economic and seasonal patterns of energy intake and expenditure in adults in rural S. India. In 1986 she moved to Aberdeen, Scotland, to establish a Human Nutrition Unit at the Rowett Research Institute. Since then she has worked in nutrition research and training at the Rowett Institute and University of Aberdeen, focussing on dietary assessment and relationships between diet and health outcomes ranging from obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer and cognitive decline in adults and obesity, asthma and dental disease in children. She was lead for obesity in the Scottish School of Public Health Research, a 2-year collaboration between academics, practitioners and policy-makers.

Geraldine is author of over 125 peer-reviewed papers (Scopus H-index 37) and a number of peer-reviewed research reports. She was coordinator of the MSc Human Nutrition and Metabolism programme at the University of Aberdeen from 1991-2000 and has supervised or co-supervised 18 PhD theses to completion. From 2008-14 she led the Public Health Nutrition research group in the University of Aberdeen. She has been a member of research ethics committees, journal editorial boards, research grant funding panels and government advisory committees. In 2014 she took early retirement but continues to work part time as an Emeritus professor.

In 2015 Geraldine was elected to the Council of the Association for Nutrition (AfN) and currently chairs the AfN Registration Committee. She also advises the Scottish Centre for Social Research on dietary aspects of the Scottish Health Survey.

Publications

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Biography

Livewell: a balance of healthy and sustainable food choices

Sugar intake and dental decay: results from a national survey of children in Scotland

Using evidence to prioritise areas for public health actions for tackling childhood overweight

Sugar and fat intake among children in Scotland: what is needed to reach the dietary targets?

Chemical transmission through the food chain

Associations between fetal size, maternal α-tocopherol and childhood asthma

A case-control study of vitamin D status and asthma in adults

Obesity case study

Dietary flavonoid intake and colorectal cancer: a case-control study

Dietary patterns of school-age children in Scotland: association with socio-economic indicators, physical activity and obesity

Caffeine consumption and cognitive function at age 70: the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 study

Can optimisation of dietary vitamin E intake by pregnant women reduce the risk of asthma in their children?: A feasibility study

Views of parents on routine measurements of children’s growth in schools

Diet and deprivation in pregnancy

Changes in the prevalence of asthma, eczema and hay fever in pre-pubertal children: a 40-year perspective

Meal and snacking patterns of school-aged children in Scotland

Food frequency questionnaires vs diet diaries

A novel online food recall checklist for use in an undergraduate student population: a comparison with diet diaries

Diet and cognitive function in later life: a challenge for nutrition epidemiology

Sugar and fat intake among children in Scotland: what is needed to reach the dietary targets?

Repeatability and validity of a food frequency questionnaire in free-living older people in relation to cognitive function

Modification of the inverse association between dietary vitamin D intake and colorectal cancer risk by a FokI variant supports a chemoprotective action of Vitamin D intake mediated through VDR binding

Overweight and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in 4- to 18-Year-Olds

Modification of the associations between lifestyle, dietary factors and colorectal cancer risk by APC variants

Folic acid use in pregnancy and embryo selection

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