Introduction

The goal of this assignment was to present new research through an original experiment, in this case the study of the impact of economy on the health of Sophie Davis Students. A research project was proposed, followed by a lab report progress update in order to see the advancement of the group. Following this a lab report was written and then transcribed into a scientific poster. After the creation of the posters a poster evaluation of all of the different research studies in the class was done.

Lab Report Proposal

Group #4: Rachel Aideyan, Renaldine Compere, Yehuda Masturov

Challenge for Sophie Davis (or college) students: eating healthy

The variable that influences the problem/challenge: money to purchase those healthy products 

• Research Question

What is the correlation, if any, between Sophie Davis students’ income and healthy eating habits? 

Independent Variable: income of Sophie Davis students

Dependent Variable: healthy eating habits 

• State a Hypothesis

The Sophie Davis students with lower incomes (whether it be coming from their parents or their jobs) will report having unhealthy eating habits

• Study Design (methods): Surveys

Questions for Survey:

1. Do you have a part-time job, a full-time job, or are you unemployed?
2. If the answer is yes to the previous question (regarding having a job), approximately how much do you earn? (make an estimated weekly amount)
3. Do your parents give you money to spend?
4. If the answer is yes to the previous question, approximately how much do you get? (make an estimated weekly amount)
5. How would you best describe your eating habits on a scale from 1-10? (10= healthiest, 1=the unhealthiest)
6. How often do you eat out per week?
7. Follow up: What do you usually eat when eating out? (elaborate if possible, details appreciated)
8. How often do you eat processed food in a week? (ex. McDonald’s, microwaved food, etc)
9. How often do you eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day in a week? (one serving = approximately 1 apple, 30 grapes, etc)
10.  Do you attempt to have healthier eating habits? 

• Purpose/Goal 
  1. The purpose of this study is to understand the correlation between how much money Sophie Davis students have and their eating habits. The reason why this is important is that once a cause for eating unhealthy is identified, those eating habits can possibly be improved. Hence, with the problem being identified, the next course of action is to understand if this relationship truly exists in order to promote health and well-being in the Sophie Davis community. 

Lab Report Progress

Lab Report Progress  

The group work is going very well. I’m not someone who usually likes group work, but I think that this is one of the exceptions. In light of the recent coronavirus pandemic and the fact that we have adopted distance learning, group work is exactly what is needed. It almost feels like we are working together at school. My group and I are working very well together. We have been able to stay in constant communication through iMessage. It is the easiest form of communication for everyone, the notifications are automatic, and answering a text is very easy. It is currently easier than email, the constant influx of emails makes it very easy to miss one. iMessage makes it very easy to see the progress that everyone is making at all times and also allows for quick alerts. 

Our ability to stay in constant contact allowed us to find a very productive way to work together. The way that we have divided the work has made it very easy to do. Everyone was able to pick what part of the lab report they would feel more comfortable writing. After doing that we were able to create assignments for everyone and due dates for those assignments. We all agreed that we would proofread together and agreed on specific times for proofreading in order to ensure that the report is read more than once by each person. So far everyone is doing their parts and we are working very efficiently together. I cannot think of much that we can improve on. A possibility is that we can create the work schedules earlier. Since we wait for everyone to be available in order to designate work, the fitting of schedules is oftentimes difficult. This means that we often have to wait for a time when everyone is available which gives us less time to work overall. However, other than that, the group work has been going very well and I think that it is currently the best way to get work done.

Lab Report

The correlation between income and healthy eating in Sophie Davis students 

Abstract   

The main objective of this research study was to investigate and determine if a correlation between the income of Sophie Davis students and their healthy eating habits existed. The experiment was conducted by constructing and distributing a survey aimed at gathering the incomes and the eating habits of the Sophie Davis Year 1 undergraduate class. After the results of the survey were reported, it was discovered that a higher proportion of Sophie Davis students with high weekly incomes ($100-$300) ate processed food as compared to Sophie Davis students with low weekly incomes ($25-$100). Also, it was found that a fewer proportion of Sophie Davis Year 1 students with high incomes ate the daily recommended servings of fruits and vegetables compared to those with low incomes. From these findings, it was concluded that Sophie Davis Year 1 students who have low incomes are also more likely to eat healthier, as low income and healthier eating habits were found to be correlated.

Introduction 

One problem all college kids have is eating healthy. However, there are many factors as to why they may be eating unhealthy, such as lack of options, easy access to unhealthy foods, and financial inability. Though all of these factors differ they all lead to the same result, an inability to constantly eat nutritious foods, which often leads to medical problems in the future, such as obesity, and heart difficulties (Giovani et al, 2018). This study focuses on the effect of income on the eating habits of college students, specifically Sophie Davis Students. Previous studies have found that college students with lower incomes are more likely to take part in unhealthy eating habits, regardless of their knowledge of nutritional requirements (Abraham et. al 2018). With this in mind, we were able to hypothesize that Sophie Davis students with lower incomes will report having unhealthy eating habits. The purpose of this study is to comprehend the correlation between income and eating habits for Sophie Davis students. This is significant because once we can identify the causes of unhealthy eating habits, eating habits themselves can be improved. The results that are gathered from this experiment can be vital in promoting the health and well-being of the Sophie Davis community. 

Materials and Methods

First, a ten-question survey was created. In this survey, since the study was aimed at discovering if there was a correlation between the income and healthy eating habits of Sophie Davis students, examples of questions included but were not limited to: how often students eat processed food, how much money students earn on a weekly basis, and how the students themselves would rate their eating habits. From there, the survey was specifically distributed to the Sophie Davis Year 1 Undergraduate class on GroupMe. The survey collected the responses of the students over the course of a week, with it closing after the allocated time period. Participants of this study consisted of 29 Sophie Davis undergraduate students, which was the target population selected for this experiment. After the data was received, the results were then interpreted and placed into graphs in order to determine if the assumed correlation between student income and healthy eating habits existed. For the purposes of this study, high income was defined as those earning $100-$300, with low income represented as $25-$100. 

Results

After gathering and analyzing the data, it was found that Sophie Davis Year 1 students with low incomes generally ate healthier as compared to their high-income counterparts. In Figure 1, which examined how often students with low income ate processed food, it was discovered that almost 41% of students in this category did not eat processed food at all. As compared to Figure 2, which examined how often students with high income ate processed food, only 25% did not eat processed food at all. In addition to this, in Figure 3, which examined how often students with low incomes ate their daily recommended servings of fruits and vegetables, it was found that a majority (81.8%) ate the recommended serving at least sometimes. Compared to the results in Figure 4, which examines those with high incomes, only half of the students sometimes ate the daily recommended servings of fruits and vegetables while the other half did not at all. 

Figure 1: The pie chart above shows the percentage of students who earn $25-100 a week and how often they eat processed food in a week. 45.5% of participants eat processed food sometimes, 40.9% never eat processed food in a week, and 13.6% often eat processed food in a week. 

Figure 2: The pie chart presented above represents the percentage of Sophie Davis undergraduate students who earn $100-300 a week and how often they eat processed food in a week. 75% of participants eat processed food sometimes, 25% never eat processed food and 0% eat processed food often. 

Figure 3: The pie chart presented above represents the percentages of Sophie Davis undergraduate students who earn $25-100 a week and how often they eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. 50% of participants eat 5 servings sometimes, 31.5% eat 5 servings often and 18.2% never eat 5 servings 

Figure 4: The pie chart presented above shows the percentages of Sophie Davis undergraduate students who earn $100-300 a week and how often they eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. 50% of participants eat 5 servings sometimes, 50% of them never eat 5 servings and 0% of them often eat 5 servings. 

Discussion

After analyzing the results, it is visible that the initial hypothesis is not supported by the findings of this experiment. The results demonstrate that prior to initial belief, those Sophie Davis students with low incomes on average eat healthier (which includes limiting the intake of processed foods and eating the daily recommended servings of fruits and vegetables) than those with high incomes. This may be due to the Sophie Davis community at large, as possibly those with low incomes may comprehend the inherent health risks with not eating healthy more thoroughly as compared to their high-income counterparts. The other component may be that increased access to money leads to convenience being favored over healthiness, while those with low incomes may not have a choice but to cook at home and thus be healthier inadvertently. It should be noted that these results cannot be applied to the broader college audience since Sophie Davis students are on a specific medical path, therefore influencing knowledge about healthy eating habits, and the audience was far too small for it to be applicable to a larger audience. In addition, students may have inaccurately self-reported for the sake of the survey, and certain students may have been more willing to take the survey over others, hence influencing the results to a degree. In the future, the correlation between income and healthy eating habits in all college students could be a possible avenue of exploration, as well as an investigation into if any causality can be established in the relationship between income and healthy eating habits. 

           References 

Abraham Sam, Noriega Brooke R., Shin Young Ju. College students’ eating habits and knowledge of nutritional requirements. Journal of Nutrition and Human Health.2018;2(1):13-17. Published 2018 Jan 17. DOI:10.35841/nutrition-human-health.2.1.13-17

Sogari G, Velez-Argumedo C, Gómez MI, Mora C. College Students and Eating Habits: A Study Using An Ecological Model for Healthy Behavior. Nutrients. 2018;10(12):1823. Published 2018 Nov 23. DOI:10.3390/nu10121823

Lab Report Poster

Poster Evaluation

Group Poster Evaluation 

Poster: Amina Nasari, Aleena Abraham, Temitope Adegbenro 

Pros:

• Vivid images that grabs your attention 
• Very clean color scheme 
• Clear and obvious results 
• All parts of the introduction was presented and it made the research topic very clear 
• The methods is very well explained 
• Significance of the research is made very clear 
• The research is explained enough to be easily imitated 
• All sections flow well together 
• Free of typos and grammatical errors 

Cons: 

• The discussion portion of the poster gets very wordy giving it a bad text balance 

Poster:Faye Megaris, Anjali Jacob, Grace Akinsulare 

Pros:

• Very attractive color scheme 
• Introduction is very clear and directly correlates to the research question 
• The hypothesis is very clear and straight to the point 
• Materials and methods are very clear and makes the study replicable 
• The results section is very clear 
• The discussion interprets the data very well

Cons: 

• The written portions of the results could have been made into graphs 
• The results could have been connected back to the hypothesis so that the reader did not need to go back to that section 
• There are no limitations or future research ideas 

Poster: Julian Mohammed, Oluwafunke Kolawole, Camile Delva 

Pros: 

• Introduction very effectively presented the topic and previous research 
• The question is very easy to understand and very obviously connects to the previously stated research 
• The hypothesis is very thorough while being concise 
• The methods of the experiment are detailed and explained very well 
• The discussion was very clear  and the connection to the hypothesis was made very clear 
• Free of typos and grammatical errors 

Cons: 

• Results section is too wordy
  • Information that was written could have been collected from the presented graphs 
• Dissimilar capitalization 
  • None of the words in the future research section are capitalized while all other sentences are capitalized which draws away the reader’s attention 

Poster:Priscilla Babalola, Debra Chan, Cameron Phillips 

Pros:

• Attractive color scheme 
• Very clear hypothesis 
• Methods are very clear and allow for the study to be replicated 
• Minimal writing in the results sections 
• Very clear graphs in the result section 
• Results are clear and concise making them easy to understand 
• Limitations and errors are made clear 

Cons: 

• Images in the title heading are too small 
• The problem question could have been written more clearly
  • I understand what the question is asking but it could have been clearer 
• Dissimilar spacing 
  • The problem and hypothesis sections are centerspaced while everything else is left spaced causing the poster to look off balance 

Poster: Oluwafisayo Adeoye,  Daniel Annan, Udeme Udom 

Pros:

• The introduction makes the study very clear 
• The problem is very apparent 
• The hypothesis of the study is made clear 
• The materials and methods are very well explained 
• The results of the study are very clear and the lack of words makes it very easy to stay concentrated in the figure alone 
• The discussion was very well written and its correlation to the hypothesis was made clear by stating that it was supported 
• The errors and limitations were made clear 

Cons: 

• The color scheme is maybe a little too bright 
• The space could have been used wiser 
  • Like the size of the bus could have been smaller and another image could have been added 

Poster: Rooshi Parikh, Imani Nwokeji, Lenondre King 

Pros:

• The color scheme of the poster is very eye catching and draws attention to it 
• The set up of the poster makes everything appear in order 
• The introduction does a great job at presenting the topic 
• The question and hypothesis are both very clear 
• The methods is very detailed and informative 
• The results section is very informative and the results are clearly presented 
• The discussion was very thorough and showed that the study supported the hypothesis as well as the limitations of the experiment 

Cons: 

• The methods section could be more specific on what kind of questions had different forms such as “yes or no” and why 

Poster: Alisha Daroch, Hans Owur, Eliza Springer 

Pros: 

• The color scheme of the poster is visually appealing 
• There is a good text balance throughout the poster 
• The poster is very well organized 
• The topic was very well introduced and the introduction connected to the hypothesis of the poster 
• The details of the materials section are thorough and easy to follow 
• Discussion results were connected to the hypothesis
• Future research as well as current limitations were mentioned

Cons: 

• The results section of the poster could have been less wordy 

Poster: Kawther Copping, Eric Emilcar, Kristina Qoku

Pros: 

• The poster flows very well
• The introduction of the poster is sufficient and connects directly to the hypothesis of the poster 
• The materials and methods portion of the poster is very well written and brief 
• The results of the poster are very clear and easy to understand 
• The discussion of the poster tied back in to the hypothesis and the results were explained 
• Possible limitations as well as future research was mentioned in this poster 

Cons: 

• The discussion portion of the poster is too wordy 
• The color choice might make it difficult to read the poster from afar but it is an aesthetic color choice 
• The sizing of the paragraphs took away from the flow of the poster