Building Applied Health Lab: A Project from the Heart

Launching this website is a small personal victory. It has taken much longer than I imagined - balancing motherhood, a full-time job, and everything in between hasn’t been easy, but I’m proud to finally introduce the Applied Health Lab.

Applied Health Lab was born from a mix of frustration and a genuine desire to help people live healthier, happier lives. I’ve worked in academia since completing my degrees, and while I’m grateful for that experience, the bureaucracy and politics have often limited my ability to do the work I truly care about. I would have loved to integrate this concept into my academic role, but after facing years of resistance, I’ve decided to build it independently.

My mission is simple: use research to make people’s lives better. Scientific studies are often complex, unclear, and inaccessible to the public, but the insights they offer can be incredibly powerful when translated into everyday language. Through Applied Health Lab, I want to make evidence-based health information simple, practical, and useful.

My work will focus on supporting people living with long-term health conditions, including Obesity and weight-related health concerns, Type 2 Diabetes, Hypertension, Cardiovascular Disease, High Cholesterol, and mental health conditions (i.e. anxiety and depression). This focus reflects my training and experience. I am not a medical doctor, so my work is not diagnostic, but I am qualified to prescribe exercise for certain clinical populations and have a strong understanding of when movement can support health without causing harm.

I also want to acknowledge my good friend, Dr. Kat Schneider, whose work inspires me every day. Kat is a researcher specialising in body image, weight bias, and weight stigma, and she approaches these topics with compassion, expertise, and a genuinely empowering attitude. Although we don’t agree on everything regarding weight and health, we both share the belief that a person’s size should not be viewed as the sole or primary problem. Inactivity is often far more harmful than a higher body weight, and research consistently shows this. Kat has also launched her own website and creates thoughtful content on social media - I highly recommend exploring her work if you want to feel more empowered and informed about your body.

Click Here to Explore Her Work

I’ll end simply by saying this - I hope Applied Health Lab grows into the vision I hold for it, a space where people can access clear, practical, and trustworthy health science. If this work helps even a handful of people feel more in control of their health, it will be worth every minute spent building it.