Snaking Habits of a College Student1
Snaking Habits of a College Student
Seth Bunker, Brett Baker, Kylee Nichols, Joseph Wallingford
Southern Utah University
Abstract
Snaking Habits of a College Student
There are a lot of different things that come to mind when the subject of college students is brought up. A few of them could include: being poor, studying, partying, and stress. Not to mention, one of the biggest difficulties, eating healthy. One might say that they wouldn’t eat healthy even if they had a choice. They say that the freshman fifteen is real. So what determines weight gain? Nicole Mihalopoulos and her partners conducted research on the topic. Mihalopoulos said, “Our results suggest that college freshmen do gain weight; however, the legendary freshman fifteen was rare among respondents.” In my experience as a college student, I would agree with them. There are times that I see students eat healthy snacks. Then, it makes me think about how I am doing. On the contrary, I find that I’m not doing too badly. I anticipate most of us are too hard on ourselves and think we are worse than we really are, and we tend to judge others the same way. The truth is, there are a lot of students who are concerned about being healthy. “Of the 114 participants who responded to the open-ended question about perceived barriers that could prevent them from selecting healthy foods in the dining hall… they mentioned ‘limited selection of healthy choices,’” stated Sharon Peterson. In this essay, we will look at the study Julia Combs conducted with our class on an average classroom of college students to see if they picked a healthy or an unhealthy snack.
Methods
For our empirical study that we did in class, we wanted to put the stereotypical college student eating habits to the test. What we did is we took a class of 24 college students and gave them a survey telling them that it would be used for some research, however only 22 filled one out. The survey had questions asking basic things such as gender, year in school, where they live, and how old they are. There were also some true or false questions asking if they eat regular scheduled healthy meals, miss out on social events due to homework, whether written assignments cause more stress than other assignments, how much they sleep, and if they usually choose healthy snacks when given the opportunity. The only question that we cared about is the one about whether or not they choose healthy snacks when given the opportunity. After they filled the survey out, they could come and get one snack so we could see what they chose and how it compared to what they said. The snacks available included 25 gala apples, 25 candy bars, 25 granola bars, and 25 bags of chips.
Results
The results of the study are as follows. Reference the graph below. Out of the 25 gala apples available, there were 11 taken leaving 14 left over. Out of the 25 candy bars available, seven were taken leaving 18 left over. Out of the 25 granola bars available, seven were taken, leaving 18 behind. Out of the 25 bags of chips available, three were taken, leaving 22 behind. This makes a total taken at 28. During the study, two candy bars were taken after the study, although this does not account for the extra two more taken without the moderators notice. Which two these were can not be determined accurately.
Discussion
In the end the statistics did not fall in our favor. College students are proving to be healthier then contrary beliefs. Chips were the least consumed followed by granola bars, candy and then the most consumed which was apples. We thought that chips would be the snack that was the most popular item, because chips provided a lot of energy and are filling. These results can vary depending on the time of day. A student might choose a different snack in the morning then they might choose in the afternoon when they are done with many of their classes. This shows us that the unhealthy college student stereotype is not entirely correct. In fact they are more likely to choose the healthy snack when given the option. We should not always lesson to what people say and start doing research for ourselves.
References
Mihalopoulos, N. L., Auinger, P., & Klein, J. D. (2008). The freshman 15: Is it real?Journal of American College Health,56(5), 531-534.
Peterson, S., Duncan, D., Null, D., Roth, S., & Gill, L. (2010). Positive changes in perceptions and selections of healthful foods by college students after a short-term point-of-selection intervention at a dining hall.Journal of American College Health,58(5), 425-431