Faculty: Arts, Humanities, Education and Social Sciences
Supervisors: Dr Kay Aaronricks ([email protected]); Dr Sanjoy Deb ([email protected])
Location: Chelmsford
Match-funded by: Essex County Council
Apply online by 8 February 2026We strongly recommend contacting the supervisors for this project for a discussion prior to applying.
Building on the pioneering foundations of the Nourishing Our Future (NOF) research, this PhD invites the opportunity to work with a cross-faculty and interdisciplinary team between ARU and Essex County Council (ECC) Public Health and Early Years Education.
Rising levels of childhood obesity and tooth decay among children under five represent an urgent early years public health challenge in the UK. Young children are growing up in an increasingly highly processed, ultra-convenient, and prohibitively expensive food environment, where families face significant economic, social, and structural barriers to providing nutritious food in the earliest years of life. These early patterns of diet and health not only shape children’s immediate wellbeing but also determine long-term trajectories for physical health, cognitive development, and educational outcomes.
Findings from the Nourishing Our Future (NOF) research highlight a concerning shift of many young children no longer recognising foods beyond the colourful and inviting packaging, signalling a generational change in how children encounter, understand, and learn about food. Despite policy commitments to improving early childhood nutrition, inequalities in access and affordability remain stark, particularly for families and early years settings operating under sustained financial and operational pressures.
This PhD project aims to investigate the barriers, challenges and enabling factors that influences participation and engagement with the public health initiative Essex Early Years Nourishing Our Future (NOF) Award.
The NOF Award, co-developed between ARU, ECC, and a working group of 11 Essex early years settings, is an accreditation framework that responds to the recommendations of the NOF research to establish support, resources and training for early years settings that guide their understanding and practice in relation to the expectations of the new Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Nutrition Guidance (DfE, 2025). Out of 1,223 early years settings in Essex, the NOF research achieved 17% engagement from day nurseries, childminders and preschools (n=201), with 5.2% of settings (n=85) engaging in the subsequent NOF Award.
Whilst NOF achieved good engagement overall, there is scope to understand more about the barriers and challenges for those settings who did not engage. The aim of this PhD research will be to explore the limitations to participation and to capture perceptions and contextual barriers faced by early years educators. The PhD researcher will also work with settings still engaged in NOF, including the Essex Early Years NOF Award, seeking to identify key enablers and opportunities to participation in healthy eating initiatives in the early years, as well as to examine the developing impact and opportunities gained from engaging with the Essex Early Years NOF Award.
Underpinned by a socio-ecological framework and guided by community based participatory approaches the project will:
Working collaboratively with researchers, local authority partners and early years educators, the PhD researcher will co-develop an inclusive strategic framework to enhance accessibility, relevance and engagement with early years public health initiatives. The project will generate practical, scalable insights to support early intervention, reduce health inequalities, and strengthen early childhood nutrition at regional and national levels.
We welcome applicants with backgrounds in:
Experience with qualitative methods, co-production, or community-based research is advantageous but not essential.
The PhD student will join a vibrant and active multidisciplinary research team who are working towards changing the landscape of nutrition in the first five years of life by working with parents, early years sector, local authorities and policy advisors, with the goal of supporting each child to have the best start in life (DfE, 2025) through the development of lifelong healthy eating skills and experiences.
The research team includes experts in education research, early years practitioner-academics and nutritional science. The PhD student will join this established, supportive environment and have the opportunity to collaborate and learn from the broader team beyond their direct supervisory team.
Apply online by 8 February 2026The successful applicant for this project will receive a Vice Chancellor’s PhD Scholarship which covers the tuition fees and provides a UKRI equivalent minimum annual stipend for 3.5 years. For 2025/6 this was £20,780 per year. The award is subject to the successful candidate meeting the scholarship terms and conditions. Please note that the University asserts the right to claim any intellectual property generated by research it funds.