Profile

Dr Angel Marie Chater, Senior Lecturer in Health Psychology

Dr Angel Chater is a Chartered Health Psychologist and a Chartered Sport and Exercise Psychologist, the Programme Manager for the BSc in Health Psychology and the Deputy Course Director of the MSc in Health Psychology at the University of Bedfordshire (UoB).

She is also the Chair of the Publicity and Liaison Sub-Committee for the Division of Health Psychology.

Angel’s research interests include health promotion, disease prevention and behaviour change interventions, particularly with children, and in the area of weight management and addiction.

Angel’s PhD focused on the psychological and parental influences of children’s health behaviours looking specifically at why some children perform healthy behaviours (healthy eating, physical activity) while others choose those that are known to be detrimental to health (smoking and alcohol use).

She has experience working as a Health Psychologist in Specialist Obesity Services at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital. In this role she supported individuals in their weight loss process with adherence to treatment protocol (pre and post-surgery for a surgical clinic or in conjunction with pharmacological and dietary interventions in a medical clinic), working with cognitions and beliefs around areas such as personal control, happiness and time management.

She has recently run projects on the connections between dieting, binge eating and weight concerns and the use of positive psychology (particularly happiness) and implementation intentions to assist people in losing weight.

She is currently working on a proposal to continue research on weight management with a view to producing self-help literature.

Angel is also working on several major pieces of research. One example is in collaboration with the Sport and Exercise department at the Bedford campus. Using an extension of her findings from her PhD, this team are testing three kinds of intervention aimed at enhancing children’s physical activity levels.

Angel is working with a number of PhD students. This research is in areas such as alcohol awareness in adolescents, where they hope to produce a DVD game designed to reduce adolescent’s intentions to drink alcohol. Another area is an extension of her own PhD research which aims to address childhood obesity issues, based in Dubai.

Education

• 2008 Diploma in NLP (Neuro-linguistic-programming)
• 2007 and 2008 Motivational Interviewing Training
• 2002 - 2007 PhD, Roehampton University “Children's health perception and health behaviour: An intervention approach” 
• 2005 Primary Certificate in Health Coaching, Counselling and Training, Centre for Coaching     
• 2000 - 2001 MSc Health Psychology,  University of Luton, Thesis   “The Relationship Between Dietary Restraint, Binge Eating, Emotional Eating, Body Mass Index and Dieting Status in a Female Non-Clinical Population”
• 1996 - 2000 BA (Hons) Psychology  University of Luton, Dissertation   'Perceptions of Binge Eating'

Membership and Professional Representation

• Chartered Health Psychologist
• Chartered Sport and Exercise Psychologist
• Chartered Scientist
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society
• Full member of the Division of Health Psychology (DHP)
• Chair of the Publicity and Liaison Sub-Committee of the DHP Executive Committee
• Member of the BPS Special Group in Coaching Psychology
• Member of Society for Coaching Psychology (SCP) Executive Committee
• Senior Fellow of the Young United Kingdom and Ireland Programme
• Young Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine
• Holder of Current Practising Certificate
• Approved BoE Health Psychology Stage II Supervisor

Unit Co-ordination

• MSc Professional Skills for Health Psychologists
• MSc Public Health
• MSc Health Psychology in Context
• MSc Lifestyle and Individual Differences
• BSc Applied Health Psychology

Teaching areas

• Health Promotion and Education
• Behaviour change interventions
• Communication Skills (CBT, NLP, MI)
• Eating Disorders
• Obesity
• Children's Perceptions of Health
• Public Health
• Substance Abuse/Addiction
• Teaching and Training Skills
• Consultancy Skills

Research Interests

• Health promotion, disease prevention and public health
• Children's health perception and health behaviour (healthy eating, exercise, smoking and alcohol use)
• Predictive value of control beliefs and cognitions on health behaviours
• Intention-behaviour relationship in health behaviour
• Message framed approach to health promotion interventions
• Parental influence on health behaviours
• Binge eating and dietary restraint
• Obesity and weight management
• Anticipating lifespan needs of children at risk
• Fussy eating and autistic spectrum disorders

Contact Details

Dr Angel Chater

Department of Psychology

University of Bedfordshire

Park Square

Luton

Bedfordshire

LU1 3JU

UNITED KINGDOM

T: +44 (0) 1582 489217

E: angel.chater@beds.ac.uk