McGill School of Human Nutrition student Manon Fantino wins francophone McGill MT180 competition

Congratulations to Macdonald Campus student Manon Fantino who has won the francophone McGill Ma thèse en 180 secondes (MT180) competition and is moving on to represent McGill nationally at the concours ACFAS MT180! Manon is in the second year of her PhD in Human Nutrition.

In the University-wide Three Minute Thesis (3MT) / MT180 competition, graduate students had the chance to showcase their leading-edge research before a live, non-expert audience with only three minutes and a single slide (in English or in French). This year, over 180 graduate students registered to take part in the McGill competition.

Can Instagram impact your eating habits?

Do we really have control over what and how we eat? That’s what Manon Fantino aims to discover.

Her talk, entitled ‘‘‘Je vois, donc je mange’ – Instagram,” focuses on factors that can influence dietary behaviour, such as genetics and our environment – including social media. Her thesis explores how brains react to social media content, particularly Instagram, which has the potential to constantly expose us to images of food.

“The impact on our eating behaviour can be subtle, but powerful,” said Fantino. “My research has the potential to identify factors in our environment that, depending on our genetics, push us to eat too much, or impulsively. This can help us improve nutritional treatments and personalize the recommendations we provide to patients.”

Manon is supervised by Professor Daiva E. Nielsen, who herself won the 2014 UofT and Ontario 3MT contests 10 years ago!

Three other Mac students also participated in the McGill University-wide 3MT competition: Samantha Dizon, Mariaelisa Polsinelli, and Mehtab Singh (who also placed first at the Macdonald Campus 3MT 2024). Read more about them.