RE-FRESH: Next Generation member Rebecca Bennett’s PhD topic ‘The Digital Food Environment and Population Health’ was confirmed before the pandemic hit and the market for online food was forever changed.
Her research has focused on understanding how digital food retail environments (delivery apps, online grocery shopping, and meal kits) are potentially influencing population diets and health – a deviation from her undergraduate studies in microbiology and chemistry where her interest lay in food regulation, from a safety perspective.
Rebecca began her PhD with Deakin University in 2020 and spent the first two years studying part-time before switching to full-time from 2022 to 2024, supervised by Professor Kathryn Backholer, Professor Gary Sacks and Dr Christina Zorbas.
As she prepares for her upcoming PhD graduation, she has taken a moment to share a little about herself and what she has learnt through the PhD process…
How did you end up ‘here’ – undertaking a PhD?
Before my time at Deakin, I was approached to complete an Honors in Microbiology but decided against it because I wasn’t sure if it was where my interest truly lay. I was also a group fitness instructor (teaching Body Combat, a martial arts-inspired cardio workout, and Body Balance, a yoga fusion workout) before a shoulder reconstruction saw my path go a different way.
I went on to study a Masters of Public Health and completed a project with Prof. Kathryn Backholer in 2017 and then worked as a research assistant. Eventually, I decided to take the plunge and start a PhD. I was especially interested in how and why people buy food online — something I’ve relied on a lot myself as a long-time user of online groceries and meal kits. When we first came up with the idea for the project in mid-2019, we had no idea COVID was just around the corner and would suddenly make online food shopping part of everyday life for so many more people!
You’ve celebrated pressing ‘submit’ on your PhD thesis, what’s next for you?
Graduation is coming up in June, and I’m really looking forward to celebrating with family and friends. In the meantime, I’m working across a few projects with different members of GLOBE (Deakin University’s Global Centre for Preventive Health and Nutrition, within the Institute for Health Transformation) and co-chairing RE-FRESH: Next Generation’s Special Interest Group for Early and Mid-Career Researchers. Soon, I’ll be applying for postdoctoral fellowships so I can keep exploring digital food environments in more depth. At the moment though, I’m enjoying life in Melbourne with my husband and our two kids — running around to kids’ sport at weekend and exploring new playgrounds!
What’s been the toughest thing about doing your PhD?
Juggling study with family life was the toughest thing. My daughter was just 9 months old when I started, so those early years were a steep learning curve in managing my time and commitments. But I’ve definitely come out the other side with a new level of efficiency and multi-tasking skills.
What have you enjoyed most about your PhD?
I really enjoyed the feeling of discovering something new; finally being able to answer a question that you’ve been thinking about is incredibly satisfying.
What did you learn most from your supervisors?
I was so lucky to have three fantastic supervisors, and it’s hard to sum up everything they’ve taught me. But overall, they helped me become more resilient. Plans change, research evolves, but they taught me to adapt and stay flexible, which made the process so much more manageable.
What did you learn from studying at this level? Perhaps a pearl of wisdom you could share with others starting their PhD journey?
I think of the PhD as a journey through hills and valleys; some days you feel on top of the world, and others are just tough. But as long as you keep moving, you’ll make your way out of the valleys. Trust the process and take breaks when you need them.
Where do you see yourself in 20 years from now?
In 20 years, I hope to be a strong voice in public health research and working towards healthier and fairer food systems, especially in digital spaces. And ideally, still collaborating with inspiring colleagues and mentoring the next generation of researchers.
Finally, can you share a list of publications that have come out of your PhD?
- Bennett, R., Keeble, M., Zorbas, C., Sacks, G., Driessen, C., Grigsby-Duffy, L., Adams, J., Burgoine, T., & Backholer, K. (2023). ‘The potential influence of the digital food retail environment on health: A systematic scoping review of the literature’. Obesity Reviews, 25(3), e13671.
- Bennett, R., Driessen, C., Zorbas, C., Sacks, G., Gupta, A., Cameron, A., Gomez Donoso, C., Peeters, A., & Backholer, K. (2024). ‘Healthier options tend to get lost in the noise of online” — Australian shoppers’ experiences with online grocery platforms’. Public Health Nutrition, 1-29.
- Bennett R, Gomez-Donoso C, Zorbas C, Sacks G, White C.M, Hammond D, Gupta A, Cameron A, Vanderlee L, Contreras-Manzano A, Backholer K (2024). ‘Prevalence of online food delivery platforms, meal kit delivery, and online grocery use in five countries: an analysis of the 2022 International Food Policy Study’. International Journal of Obesity.
- Bennett, R., Sacks, G., Zorbas, C., Huse, O., Wood, B., & Backholer, K. (2025). ‘Exploring the Commercial Determinants of Health in the Online Food Delivery Sector: A Case Study of Uber Eats in Australia’. Critical Public Health, 35(1).
Do you have any links to other resources/projects you’ve worked on that you’d like to share?
Working with Dr Cindy Needham, Dr Laura Alston, and Dr Christina Zorbas, we conducted a Delphi study to create a food environment scoring index to assess the healthiness of food outlets available on delivery platforms:
Bennett, R., Zorbas, C., Alston, L., & Needham, C. (2024). ‘Creating a food environment scoring index for online food delivery outlets: Delphi study with Australian nutrition and public health professionals’. Nutrition & Dietetics, 1-9.
We then used this scoring index to analyse all the food outlets available from Uber Eats and Menulog in Victoria:
Bennett, R., Alston, L., Zorbas, C., Wasnik, S., Lemke, C., & Needham, C. (2024). ‘The healthiness of Australian food outlets available through online delivery platforms, by level of socioeconomic disadvantage and remoteness’. Health & Place, 90, 103380.
