Dr Fabiola Creed
- Research Associate (Sociological & Cultural Studies)
email:
Fabiola.Creed@glasgow.ac.uk
pronouns:
She/her/hers
School of Social and Political Sciences, 42 Bute Gardens, Glasgow, Glasgow City, Scotland, United Kingdom, G12 8RT
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3077-5002Biography
From 2024-30, Dr Fabiola Creed is a Research Associate on Professors Anna Greenwood, Alex Mold and Heather Wardle’s project, Kicking the Habit: Historicising ‘Addictive’ Sport Sponsorship in Britain, 1965-2025 (Wellcome funded). Her strand explores the gambling industry’s sponsorship of sport (football, F1, rugby, cricket and tennis).
From 2021-24, she was a Research Fellow on Professor Hilary Marland’s project The Last Taboo of Motherhood?: Postnatal Mental Disorders in 20th Britain (University of Warwick, Wellcome funded).
From 2020-21, she undertook a Early Career Fellowship on the Medical Humanities China-UK Exchange Programme (Universities of Strathclyde, Manchester and Shanghai), and a IAS Fellowship (Warwick).
From 2015-20, she completed her Medical Humanties MA/PhD on tanning technologies, notably sunbeds (Warwick), and was awarded a Secondment Fellowship at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology.
Fabiola has published on the history of maternal mental illness, and tanning culture in twentieth and early twenty-first century Britain. Her first book is The Rise and Fall of the Sunbed in Britain: Tanning Culture From Fad to Fear (Bloomsbury, 2025). The Wellcome Trust kindly funded all of her research; all of her publications are, therefore, open access.
She is passionate about using her research to better inform policy and enjoys making history accessible to the public. Fabiola has provided expertise via national newspapers (Scotsman), digital press (Refinery29 and I-News), radio (Clyde 1), podcasts (Warwick PG), and also archive, campaign and government groups.
Research interests
Fabiola is interested in the commercial determinants of health, specialising in the history of industry, advertising, technology, mass media, (patient-)consumer narratives, and stigma in twentieth and early twenty-first-century Britain.
Research groups
Publications
2025
Creed, Fabiola 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3077-5002
(2025)
The Rise and Fall of the Sunbed in Britain: Tanning Culture from Fad to Fear.
Bloomsbury Academic.
ISBN 9781350450332
(In Press)
Creed, Fabiola ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3077-5002
(2025)
Sunbeds, dihydroxyacetone (DHA) fake tan, and MelanoTan injections: a history of 'safe' tanning technologies.
In: Elder, Rachel and Schlich, Thomas (eds.)
Technology, Health, and the Patient Consumer in the Twentieth Century.
Series: Social Histories of Medicine.
Manchester University Press.
ISBN 9781526171146
(doi: 10.7765/9781526171153.00015)
2024
Creed, Fabiola ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3077-5002
(2024)
Talk shows and ‘tanorexia’: motherhood and ‘sunbed addiction’ on British television in the 1990s.
In: Froom, Hannah, Loughran, Tracey, Mahoney, Kate and Payling, Daisy (eds.)
‘Everyday health’, embodiment, and selfhood since 1950.
Series: Social Histories of Medicine.
Manchester University Press, pp. 272-293.
ISBN 9781526170675
(doi: 10.7765/9781526170675.00025)
Books
Creed, Fabiola ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3077-5002
(2025)
The Rise and Fall of the Sunbed in Britain: Tanning Culture from Fad to Fear.
Bloomsbury Academic.
ISBN 9781350450332
(In Press)
Book Sections
Creed, Fabiola ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3077-5002
(2025)
Sunbeds, dihydroxyacetone (DHA) fake tan, and MelanoTan injections: a history of 'safe' tanning technologies.
In: Elder, Rachel and Schlich, Thomas (eds.)
Technology, Health, and the Patient Consumer in the Twentieth Century.
Series: Social Histories of Medicine.
Manchester University Press.
ISBN 9781526171146
(doi: 10.7765/9781526171153.00015)
Creed, Fabiola ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3077-5002
(2024)
Talk shows and ‘tanorexia’: motherhood and ‘sunbed addiction’ on British television in the 1990s.
In: Froom, Hannah, Loughran, Tracey, Mahoney, Kate and Payling, Daisy (eds.)
‘Everyday health’, embodiment, and selfhood since 1950.
Series: Social Histories of Medicine.
Manchester University Press, pp. 272-293.
ISBN 9781526170675
(doi: 10.7765/9781526170675.00025)
Prior publications
Article
Fabiola Creed (2025) “ Woman’s Hour or Mother’s Hour”: postnatal depression narratives, treatment and reception on BBC radio, 1946–1985 Feminist Media Studies Crossref. (doi: 10.1080/14680777.2025.2468897)
Fabiola Creed (2025) As 'tanning addicts' are publicly shamed and belittled, the real villains appear untouchable The Scotsman Fabiola Creed.
Fabiola Creed (2025) Nemone Lethbridge’s play Baby Blues on BBC television: maternal mental illness narratives, stigma and support in 1970s Britain Women's History Review Crossref. (doi: 10.1080/09612025.2024.2327895)
Fabiola Creed (2022) From ‘Immoral’ Users to ‘Sunbed Addicts’: The Media–Medical Pathologising of Working-class Consumers and Young Women in Late Twentieth-century England Social History of Medicine Crossref. (doi: 10.1093/shm/hkac012)
Other
Fabiola Creed (2024) What Trump’s Increasingly Orange Face Tells Us About Him I-Paper / I-News Fabiola Creed.
Fabiola Creed (2024) Paying through the nose: An investigation into nasal tanning sprays and injections Clyde 1/Glasgow Radio Bauer Media Audio UK Fabiola Creed.
Fabiola Creed (2023) Our Obsession With Tanning Is Rooted In Sexism & Here’s Why Refinery29 - Global Digital Media Fabiola Creed.
Fabiola Creed (2021) A Conversation with Dr Fabiola Creed: History of the Sunbed Health Social Media (founded by Dr Petya Eckler) Fabiola Creed.
Fabiola Creed (2020) Clean Eating and Tanning as Cultural Phenomena Warwick PG Podcast Fabiola Creed.
Report
Fabiola Creed, Hilary Marland (2023) Improving Maternity Care through Women’s Voices: The Women’s Health Strategy Continues a Long Process of Advocacy History & Policy Fabiola Creed.
Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, Fabiola Creed, Rowena Bermingham (2019) Improving witness testimony Crossref Metadata Search. (doi: 10.58248/pn607)
Book Review
Fabiola Creed (2022) Protective Practices: A History of the London Rubber Company and the Condom Business Cultural and Social History Fabiola Creed. ISSN 1478-0046 (doi: 10.1080/14780038.2022.2082083)
Fabiola Creed (2020) The ‘Sedimented Meanings and Compounded Politics’ of Skin Lighteners Metascience Fabiola Creed. ISSN 1467-9981 (doi: 10.1007/s11016-020-00551-x)
Fabiola Creed (2019) Tania Woloshyn, Soaking up the Rays Social History of Medicine Fabiola Creed. ISSN 1477-4666 (doi: 10.1093/shm/hkz005)
Grants
2023: Global Research Priority, and Centre for the History of Medicine Funding, Univeristy of Warwick (with Emeritus Professor Hilary Marland)
2022-3: Wellcome Trust Research Enrichment, Public Engagement Award (led by Emeritus Prof. Marland)
2022-3: Warwick University’s Arts & Humanities Impact Award (led by Emeritus Prof. Marland)
2020: Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick, ECR Fellowship Award
2019: Wellcome Trust, Humanities and Social Science Secondment Fellowship Award, Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
2016-20: Wellcome Trust, Medical Humanities PhD Award
2015-6: Wellcome Trust, History of Medicine MA Award
2012: University of Liverpool, Study Abroad Semester Award for Monash University, Australia.
Supervision
Fabiola is open—and looking forward—to supervising PhD students and their projects. She is interestested in supervising project on the history of controversial industries and products, and also maternal mental health, in twentieth and twenty-first-century Britain.
Teaching
She has lectured and taught both undergraduates and postgraduates on History of Britain, Medical History, and Media and Health modules/courses at the University of Warwick (2022-24) and Strathclyde (2020-21).
Professional activities & recognition
Research fellowships
- 2020 - 2020: Wellcome Trust Secondment Fellowship, Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
