Megan Warin

Megan Warin

School of Social Sciences

Faculty of Arts

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.

Megan is a Professor in the School of Social Sciences and has held academic positions in Anthropology (Durham University), Gender Studies, Public Health, and Psychiatry. Her research investigates gender and class differences in obesity, public understandings of obesity science (developmental origins of health and disease and epigenetics), Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander views on health, eating and intergenerational transmission, phenomenological approaches to embodiment and the nature of desire in disordered eating. Much of her research is interdisciplinary and works across biosocial approaches to cultural practices, embodiment and health, drawing on a range of scholarship (anthropology, Science and Technology Studies, lifecourse, philosophy, feminism & sociology) that seeks to engage with the social and life sciences.

Her recent Australia Research Council Future Fellowship (2015-2019) and ARC Linkage project explores how people in a community targeted as ‘obesogenic’ respond to obesity interventions, and why obesity interventions continue to have limited reach. As an anthropologist she situates eating and food in the practice of everyday lives, where social relationships, place and cultural understandings are valued over decontextualized information about nutrients.

Her research in eating and embodiment examines gender and responsibility in discourses of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) and epigenetics, and the ways in which women's reproductive bodies and behaviours are positioned as key environments of temporality and health for future generations. A current ARC Discovery project examines both the productive and limiting discourses of environmental epigenetics as an explanatory framework for Indigenous Australians in linking the social past with the biological present to understand the intergenerational effects of historical trauma.

Megan welcomes inquiries from Masters and PhD candidates interested in: food and eating, health, bodies, eating disorders, sensory anthropology, phenomenology, obesity, lifecourse perspectives, biosocial approaches, the anthropology of epigenetics and the First 1000 days..

My current projects include:

  • Food/Body encounters: new approaches and alternative solutions to obesity prevention and policy (ARC Future Fellow) (Warin, M)
    There is growing recognition of the need for new ways of tackling the obesity problem, and for forms of intervention that move beyond the limitations of individual behavioural changes. This research project provides a paradigm for re-orientating how we come to know obesity by investigating the cultural and institutional processes that shape everyday food and activity practices. Understanding and intervening in these dynamics of social practice are central to the challenges of reversing trends in the prevalence of obesity. Cultural understandings of food, eating and obesity, and the key role of health inequalities that contribute to obesity, were presented to the Senate Select Committee into obesity in 2018, and included in the Senate's final report and recommendations on interventions and policy directions for obesity in Australia.
     
  • Epigenetic Charisma: The Politics of Epigenetic Hope and Hype in Australia (ARC Discovery) (Kowal, E.; Warin, M & Meloni, M)
    This project seeks to examine the ways in which epigenetic discourses are strategically taken up and used in Indigenous Australian contexts. Unlike genetic research, epigenetics offers the promise of hope through environmental change, but also carries the dangerous potential of biosocial damage.
  • Risk, Trust and Socio-economic Status: Understanding middle-aged women’s responses to alcohol/breast cancer risks (ARC Discovery) (Ward, P; Warin, M; Wilson C; Olver I; Miller, E; Bissell P; Meyer, S & Macdonald, S)
    This project aims to identify and understand the nature of alcohol consumption patterns by ‘middle-aged’ Australian women in different socio-economic status (SES) groups, and if/how these are shaped in response to considerations of trust and future health risks. We will focus on the known risk of alcohol for the development of breast cancer, which is particularly important given that Australian culture is seemingly saturated by alcohol use, marketing and social acceptability.
     
  • Family by Family: Addressing childhood obesity through local understandings and local solutions (Channel 7 Children's Research Fund) (Warin M; Zivkovic T & Maher J)
    Research demonstrates that individual approaches telling people to eat less and exercise more do not work.  This project seeks to understand how an innovative and community led initiative that focuses on aspects of people’s lives that impact on health (such as housing, under-employment, mental health) enables people to engage in social change around food and family eating. 
     
  • Improving nutrition and health outcomes for women and babies in the Aboriginal Family Birthing Program (Aboriginal Families and Baby Bundles) NHMRC
    Many Aboriginal women in SA give birth before they are 25 years old, and the recent strong policy on improving the quality of pregnancy care has focused on reducing low birthweight. This project broadens support during pregnancy and in antenatal care by offering a novel package of culturally appropriate nutrition and well-being strategies, embedded in the SA Aboriginal Family Birthing Program at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital (WCH), a model highly accepted by Aboriginal women. Key partnerships include Aboriginal Maternal and Infant Care Workers, the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Women’s and Children’s Health Network, the Child and Family Health Service (CaFHS) and the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute.
Date Project Name Investigators Funding Body Amount
2019 - 2021 Epigenetic Charisma: The Politics of Epigenetic Hope and Hype in Australia Kowal, E.; Warin, M & Meloni, M ARC Discovery $348,000
2019 - 2021 Risk, Trust and Socio-economic Status: Understanding middle-aged women’s responses to alcohol/breast cancer risks Ward, P; Warin, M; Wilson C; Olver I; Miller, E; Bissell P; Meyer, S & Macdonald, S ARC Discovery $461,000
2018 - 2019 Family by Family: Addressing childhood obesity through local understandings and local solutions Warin M; Zivkovic T & Maher J Channel 7 Children's Research Fund $74,000
2016 - 2021 Improving nutrition and health outcomes for women and babies in the Aboriginal Family Birthing Program Middleton, P; Stuart-Butler, D; Ah Kit, J; Brown, S; Rumbold, A; Makrides, M; Warin, M; Brown, A; Mensah, F & Deverix J NHMRC $975,881
2016 Indigenous knowledge in a postgenomic landscape: The politics of epigenetic reparation Warin, M Faculty Active Research Grant $3,992
2015 - 2019 Food/Body encounters: new approaches and alternative solutions to obesity prevention and policy Warin, M ARC Future Fellow $789,729
2013 Developing a new biocultural framework to address 'wicked public health problems. Warin, M; V Moore, J Dodd, A Chong (Ypih) Yaitya Purruna Indigenous Health Unit. Interdisciplinary Research Fund $22,000
2012 - 2015 Steward or nanny state: Consulting the public about the use of regulations and laws to address childhood obesity. Braunack-Mayer, A; Street, J; Reynolds, C; Moore, V; Warin, M; Carter, D; Moss, J & Merlin, T Australian National Preventive Health Agency Research Grants Program $288,381
2012 - 2015 An ethnographic study of obesity risk in a disadvantaged community. Warin, M; Moore, V; Ward, P; Jones, M & RA: Zivkovic, T ARC Linkage $162,885
2012 Biological postcards: The popularisation of Barker’s hypothesis Warin, M Faculty Research Active Grant Scheme $7396
2012 - 2013 Food stories: How children from socially disadvantaged areas engage with childhood obesity prevention programs. Warin, M Channel 7 Children's Research Fund $75,000
2011 - 2014 Dynamics of denial: Why are people with eating disorders reluctant to engage with treatment services?

Warin, M; Wade, T & Gilchrist, P 

 ARC Linkage $108,000

2007- 2010

 Early life influences on obesity and fat patterning in children: critical periods, environmental determinants, and socio-cultural context Moore V; Davies, M; Robinson J; Warin, M & Worsley, T National Health and Medical Research Council $1.1 million
2006-2008 The Florey Adelaide Male Ageing Study: Promoting Health Wellbeing and Utilisation of Health Services by Middle aged and Older Men

Wittert, G; Hiller, J; Taylor, A; Warin, M; Braunack-Mayer, A, & Nettelbeck T..

Premiers Science Research Award $300,000
2004-2007 Florey Adelaide Male Aging Study Wittert, G; Marshall, V; Hiller, J; Warin, M; Taylor, A; O’Loughlin, P; Tilley, W; Choong, C; Wallace, J; Forbes, B; Sugarman, R. Florey Medical Research Grant $450, 000

 

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  • Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2019 Co-Supervisor The Care Project - Improving the Wellbeing of Older Kaurna Ngarrindjeri Women Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Annapurna Nori
    2019 Principal Supervisor Curing Diabetes Through Motherly Care: the Gendered Politics of Homemade Food in Hyderabad Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Pallavi Laxmikanth
    2019 Principal Supervisor Exploring epigenetics in response to intergenerational trauma in Indigenous Australia: race, gender, and the production of scientific knowledge. Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Henrietta Rose Byrne

  • Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2013 - 2018 Co-Supervisor Enacting Knowledge, Power, and Equity: Understanding the Public Appetite for Preventive Obesity Regulations Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Dr Lucy Farrell
    2012 - 2016 Principal Supervisor Assemblages of Care: Why Women with Disordered Eating are Ambivalent to Seek Therapeutic Care Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Connie Marguerite Musolino
    2011 - 2016 Principal Supervisor Navigating “madness” and “fatness”: distorted spatiotemporalities in experiences of antipsychotic-induced weight gain Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Ms Tara Lee Bates
    2010 - 2014 Principal Supervisor Gender and Invested Agency: Cultural Expressions in the United Arab Emirates Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Jillian Schedneck
    2009 - 2011 Co-Supervisor To Entrap and Empower: Maternal Responsibility in an Age of Neo-Liberal Health Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Toni Delany
    2009 - 2013 Principal Supervisor Negotiating Perceptions of Failure, Risk and Redemption in an Australian Breast Milk Bank Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Gabbie Zizzo
    2005 - 2007 Co-Supervisor The Trouble with White Pants: Medicalisation and Agency in the Context of Menstrual Suppression Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Dr Jessica Gunson
    2004 - 2005 Co-Supervisor What is Social Support? A Grounded Theory of Social Interaction in the Context of the New Family Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Ms Philippa Williams
    2003 - 2012 Co-Supervisor Beyond Masculinity: A Qualitative Study of Men's Help Seeking and Health Service Use in South Australia Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr James Smith
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