Ingela Lundin Kvalem

Academic interests

 Body image and body ideals

    o Body image and development in adolescence and in midlife/old age
    o Body image and sexuality
    o Body image and overweight

Prevention: Development and evaluation of health interventions

Ongoing and previous project:

• Obesity Surgery: Motivation, psychological effect and behavior change

  • The goal is to early identify those who after obesity surgery / conservative overweight treatment will have problems with weight loss maintenance, eating habits, physical activity and mental health by examining how weight loss history, self-regulation and other psychosocial factors affect post-treatment behavior change and mental health.

  • Patients undergoing obesity surgery at the Center for morbid obesity, Oslo University Hospital, Aker and clients receiving conservative overweight treatment are followed in a longitudinal study over a 10-year period. The study started in January 2011 and 10-year follow-up study will start in the autumn of 2021..

• Long-term psychological effect after cancer treatment: Subproject in PROCCA (Protons Contra Cancer): UiO: Life Science - convergence environment

  • The aim of the sub-project at the Department of Psychology is to study the long-term effect on body image, sexual health, and fatigue after cancer treatment in the neck / head region. The study started in January 2020.

• Cosmetic surgery: Motivation and psychological effect

  • The project will examine the scope and attitudes to cosmetic surgery and procedures in Norwegian women, as well as motivation to carry out cosmetic surgery. A panel of 3-4000 women will receive an anonymous online form. Start-up January 2022.

• Prevention: Evaluation of effect

  • Online intervention "Talk about it" aimed at the elderly and health professionals with the goal of getting more people to talk about sexual health and to seek help when needed.
  • Collaboration with the Center for Rare Diagnoses on the evaluation of the online intervention "Young-Face IT" aimed at young people with appearance differences

Teaching

PSY2101 - Health Psychology

PSY2103 - Sexology

PSY4120 - Methods of prevention work

Higher education and employment history

• Cand. psychol., University of Oslo

• PhD in psychology. University of Oslo

• Research assistant/PhD candidate at the Department of Epidemiology, The Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo

• Researcher at the Youth Research Group, Norwegian Social Research (NOVA), Oslo

• Professor in Health psychology, Dep. Of psychology, University of Oslo

Membership/ research groups

Member of the European Health Psychology Society

Member of the International Academy of Sex Research

Member of the The Obesity Society

Health Psychology Research Group