Delfien van Dyck defended her thesis in Ghent

Yesterday Delfien van Dyck received her doctorate at Ghent University after successfully defending her thesis ' The physical environment and its association with physical activity and sedentary behaviors in adults and adolescents'. I had the honor to be part of the examination committee. Dr. van Dyck has written an exceptionally good thesis in the field of behavioral nutrition and physical activity. Her thesis comprises 16 scientific papers, most of these published in the best journals in the field. Before her defense she gave a very lively, clear and scientifically sound public lecture about her work, and after that she did a very good job in discussing her work with the examination committee.
The day after the thesis defense, Dr. van Dyck and her primary supervisor, Prof. Ilse de Bourdeaudhuij organized a symposium on behavioral nutrition and physical activity issues with four presentations. Profs. David Crawford (Deakin University, Australia), Neville Owen (Barker IDI, Australia), Jim Sallis (University of California, USA) and myself presented some of our work and discussed this with an audience of scientists, policy makers and people active in health promotion practice. The discussion focussed strongly on what the main drivers of healthy nutrition and physical activity behaviors are, the opportunities for health behavior in the environments where people live, or the individual motivations and abilities that people have for living healthily.