Aala Alfailakawi

Profile

Aala Alfailakawi is a registered dietitian from Kuwait. Alfailakawi has her bachelor’s degree in nutrition from Kuwait University (2009). She has ten years of clinical experience working in the Central Medical Nutrition Clinics, and Primary Health Care Nutrition Clinics- Ministry of Health, Kuwait. She used to manage the nutrition status of patients with obesity, patients undergoing bariatric surgery, patients with chronic diseases, and childhood obesity. Alfailakawi continued her Master's study in Clinical Nutrition at the University of Nottingham (2020). Ministry of Health (Kuwait) granted Alfailakawi a scholarship to pursue a PhD degree and she started at the University of Leeds as a postgraduate researcher in January 2021.

Research interests

Since Aala Alfailakawi worked with patients to manage the diet pre- and post-bariatric surgery, she touched on the difficulties, problems, and complications facing this population. Additionally, working in Kuwait, a country with a high rate of obesity and bariatric surgery performed per year, she was interested in investigating the role played by the dietitian in optimising the health of patients undergoing bariatric surgery. Therefore, her Master's degree dissertation was a systematic review on the effect of protein intake post-bariatric surgery on weight loss and body composition.  As part of her PhD, she conducted a systematic review to examine the impact of dietary counselling on postoperative weight and clinical outcomes of adults who underwent bariatric surgery. Her research aims to fill some gaps that are identified from previous studies regarding evaluating the impact of dietary counselling on postoperative weight and clinical outcomes and to increase the level of evidence for involving the dietitian as a key member of the multidisciplinary team.

Qualifications

• Bachelor in Nutrition (Kuwait University)
• Master's in Clinical Nutrition (University of Nottingham)