project one

Research Proposal:

Being a Freshman at Florida State University has taught me a lot about life and myself as a whole. It has opened up my eyes to many different types of people and opportunities. Since coming here I became an active member in the gym and have learned a lot of really neat things about living a healthier lifestyle and how to workout properly. On campus at FSU there are two main gyms that are open to all students: The Leach and the Health and Wellness Center. Both of these gyms are fully equip with different exercise machines and other amenities. Going to the gym has made me feel a lot more confident about myself and has made me meet a lot of people. The people at the gym are always very positive and make you want to work out and motivate you. This community has taught me how to be the best me and makes me want to come to the gym to better my body and brain which is why I chose to research this community. The question that I am asking is, “What at Florida State helps students between the ages of 18-21 create a healthier lifestyle?” As stated above, usually everyone just focuses on the gym and how helpful it can be to help make people healthier. However, there are other components to living a healthier life style, such as how you eat, how you think about yourself and your environment. All of these factors and others are how one can achieve a healthier lifestyle because health is about how you feel not how you look to others. I plan on using primary resources such as teenage magazines, news articles and more. However, I also might watch some YouTube videos because I know a lot of college students post on there. I am going to interview a trainer from the Leach Gym and maybe even talk to some students and create a poll about what they think healthy lifestyle is. I want to make this a very interesting research paper, not just through facts about the gym or eating healthy at my readers, I can't wait to see where my research leads to!

Peer Interview:

Every fan in the stand is screaming and cheering for FAMU but in my own head all I can think about is how I am going to be a Nole one day. Florida State was always Ashanti’s dream school, she wanted to be the first of her family to go here. Coming from a very small town in Orlando, called Ocoee Ashanti didn’t expect to come to Florida State being so close to UCF and having family that went to FAMU. But she said “I’ve always been pro college and didn’t want to apply to a bunch of school so I just applied to Florida State and FAMU” She said she wanted to go to FSU because “I’ve always been a nole at heart based on the comradery I’ve just always been Florida State.”

Not knowing anyone coming into FSU made it a little more difficult for Ashanti to be comfortable with her new surroundings. However, she did come for Summer C and that helped her really find her place here. She said that “I feel like dorm life over the summer was way easier to manage because not everyone was on campus yet so going around to classes and activities didn’t feel as big and I was able to make my home.” However, the dorm that she lives in now doesn’t really have any perks other than being close to her classes.

Ashanti has always been very musically inclined but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to bring that part of her to Florida State. In high school she was the band president and was a very big member in that program. But eventually strayed away from the music programs and has started to join other children based community service programs. Ashanti states that “I just realized that as a pre med major I don’t have time to continue my music career, because in high school music was my life and I always had time for it but here I don’t feel like I’m going to have the time.” Ashanti continues to explain that being a doctor, specifically a pediatrician is always something that she has been very passionate about. Her life goal is to become a “Health care provider or a mission group leader that goes to third world countries to provide assistance.” Going into the medical field is just a stepping stone to what Ashanti wants to do in the future.

She came into FSU with a lot of credits. This is because she has been taking classes over the summer and also did dual enrollment in high school. She is academically a sophomore but physically a freshman. Ashanti says “I feel like I am in a rush to pick my major now because I am academically closer to that stage in my life.” She realizes that going down the medical route is a long way to go and does not want to graduate early. This is due to the program, Interdisciplinary Medical Sciences, that she has joined at Florida State.

Ashanti has learned a lot about herself since being here. She states that “I am older and more mature than I thought.” She uses the word stabilizing when describing how she feels about how she has acted since she has come to FSU. Ashanti explains this by saying “I am able to do a lot of the things that I didn’t think I was going to be able to do without my mom being here.” Since being here she has made a really nice group of friends that don’t like going out clubbing and being crazy, just like her. She states that their definition of a perfect night is “stay in and play UNO and just being with each other.” Ashanti plans on continuing to explore Tallahassee more this semester and try to put some more time aside for doing things that she enjoys!

Annotated Bibliography:

Annotated Bib Source 1:

National Center for Chronic Diseases Prevention and Health Promotion. “Health and Academic Achievement” https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/health_and_academics/pdf/health-academic-achievement.pdf

The National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion or CDC is an organization that helps protect Americans health and safety related to diseases. In the article “Health and Academic Achievement” the CDC states that their main goal is to get “Schools, health agencies, parents, and communities share a common goal of supporting the link between healthy eating, physical activity, and improved academic achievement of children and adolescents.”

The article compares dietary behaviors and academic achievement and physical activity and academic achievement. The article continues to explain how to constructively get these messages across to different audiences. For example, school districts are “Implementing strategies that help students stay healthy through eating healthy foods and being physically active” this leads to decreased rates of absent students amongst other results.

This article specifically shows that the authors want American students to be live healthy, eat healthy, and perform positively in educational settings. The Journal of Nutrition and Food Sciences published an article titled “The Perception of College Students about a Healthy Lifestyle and its Effect on their Health.” The journal conducts a study that proves that exercising and eating a healthy diet does directly correlate with a healthier lifestyle for college students. This journal relates to the articled published by the CDC because they both positively support the use of extracurricular and balanced eating to help implement better academics and a happier life.

Annotated Bib Source 2:

Hanaa Ghaleb Al-Amari (2015) The Perception of College Students about a Healthy Lifestyle and its Effect on their Health. J Nutr Food Sci 5:437. doi: 10.4172/2155-9600.1000437https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/the-perception-of-college-students-about-a-healthy-lifestyle-and-its-effect-on-their-health-2155-9600-1000437.php?aid=63506

Hanaa Ghaleb Al-Amari and Nedaa Al-Khamees both are educators at Kuwait University that helped research and write this journal. Hanna is the Associate Professor under the College of Education at Kuwait University. Their article studied the “perception of college students from Kuwait University about a healthy lifestyle and its effect on their health.” They think a healthy lifestyle is “measured by diet, exercise, and sleep.”

They administered questionnaires and then put all the data in the computer to find out information about healthy dieting, iron deficiency anemia, sleep, body weight, and exercise. The article continues to explain how important eating healthy is for one’s body “Eating the correct amount of nutrients is essential for the body’s proper functioning. Basic nutrition is the fuel that a body needs to operate.” It then states how important exercise is for the human body to function properly. “The journal shows a couple different charts that help the readers visualize what they were testing and how the results varied from between men and women.

This journal strictly states “College is the absolute best time for students to learn the importance of making time and dedicating energy to a health and fitness program.” In the article by the CDC it explains how earlier in life how important it is for parents, school and children to understand how important it is to have a balance and healthy lifestyle. It specifically states that “Students who are physically active tend to have better grades, school attendance, cognitive performance, and classroom behaviors.” Even though both of these articles are discussing different age groups, the main message is the same. All students of any age should have access to maintaining a healthy lifestyle so they can succeed.

Annotated Bib Source 3:

Eileen T Kennedy; “Evidence for nutritional benefits in prolonging wellness”, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 83, Issue 2, 1 February 2006, Pages 410S–414S, https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/83/2/410S/4650119

Eileen T Kennedy is a Professor at the University of Boston and specializes in nutrition. She is the author of this article and has also published other works, a book and is the executive direction of the ILFS. This article discusses that “Healthy aging involves the interaction between genes, the environment, and lifestyle factors, particularly diet and physical activity.” Kennedy thinks that these are the factors that lead to a healthy lifestyle.

“This article provides a broad overview of factors related to diet, nutrition, chronic diseases, and healthy aging. Each of the themes discussed is complex; the intent is not to provide a comprehensive summary of each issue but rather to illustrate examples of the links between nutrition, disease prevention, and the aging process.” The author relates all of these problems to life expectancy and how it is changing throughout the world due to people leading healthier lifestyles. The article concludes by stating that people living in the United States now are healthier than they have ever been and this is due to healthier lifestyle choices.

This article by Kennedy correlates with the article “Associations between Physical Activity and Other Health Behaviors in Representative Sample of US Adolescents.” This is because both of the articles explain how important exercising really is. In the article it is explained that “adults who chose to be regular exercisers also tend to adopt other positive health habits.” This is also supported with Kennedys article because she claims that a healthy lifestyle, dieting and exercising, leads to life long benefits.

Annotated Bib Source 4:

FIALOVÁ, Ludmila. “Lifestyle and Health Promoting Habits as Topic for School Education.” Revista Española De Pedagogía, vol. 72, no. 257, 2014, pp. 95–107. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23766815.

Ludmila Fialov is a well known author that published this paper to the “Universidad Internacional de La Rioja.” She is also a very well known author with many different contributions in demographic articles throughout Czechoslovakia. However, in this specific paper she discusses how health is “strongly connected with pedagogical, psychological and sociological aspects.”

This article is divided into a couple of subsections that all describe lifestyle and healthy habits that affect children in school. The aim of their research was to find “correlations between health supporting behavior and selected personality characteristics within university students as well as the analysis of mistakes in their lifestyle.” They tested this by giving 4292 students different questionnaires making them answer questions about 11 factors related to hygiene, weight, physical activity, positive attitudes etc. These factors were then turned into 6 different clusters all describing different types of lifestyles people live.

This article by Ludamila Fialvola correlates with another article titled “Self esteem and body image perception in a sample of university students.” Both of these articles goals were to see the type of different people at universities and how there are many different lifestyles that are led. In Fialvolas article she explains how one cluster (cluster 3) in which “physical activities are natural for them, they take care of their lifestyles through which they try to get influences on health troubles and are interested in their health situation.” This highly correlates with the main hypothesis of other article which discusses young women’s body dissatisfaction.

Annotated Bib Source 5:

J Shepherd, A Harden, R Rees, G Brunton, J Garcia, S Oliver, A Oakley; Young people and healthy eating: a systematic review of research on barriers and facilitators, Health Education Research, Volume 21, Issue 2, 1 January 2006, Pages 239–257, https://academic.oup.com/her/article/21/2/239/671343

7 different authors that are all from the EPPI-Centre worked together to publish this article. All of the authors work at the University of London and have been published in other scholarly works. This article specifically studies “barriers to, and facilitators of, healthy eating among young people (11–16 years).” However, they focus on factors such as community and social aspects of healthy living.

This study followed a general approach and they conducted a three-part systematic review. In the first part they found different things that were barriers and facilitators of health. Second they did in-depth research about healthy eating with young people and how this effected them in the future. Finally, they used a “‘mixed methods’ triangulatory approach” to collect data. All of these with multiple other assessments lead to their results that “No studies were found which examined the effectiveness of interventions to lower the price of healthy foods. However, one soundly evaluated intervention was partially effective in increasing the availability of healthy snacks in community youth groups.”

This study relates to the study done by Tracy L. Wright titled “Body Image and Healthy Lifestyle Behavior Among University Students.” This is because both of the articles stress how important healthy lifestyles are but how there are so many things that get in the way from doing this. Specifically, in this article, it discusses universities and how body image and eating healthy is a large struggle. The article states “Understanding healthy lifestyle behaviors and the relationship between body image and these behaviors can empower individuals to engage in behaviors to improve health” and this correlates with the barriers you have to overcome to live healthy.

Final Draft : Research Paper & Annotated Bibliography

Living a Healthy Lifestyle

Ever since coming to Florida State it has become apparent to me that the workout culture is huge at this school. People are constantly rushing to one of the two gyms, headphones on not focusing on anything except their workout. Since coming here I personally have become an active member of the gym and started to adopt a somewhat healthier lifestyle. What I mean by a healthier lifestyle is to eat cleaner and more consciously, think more positively about myself and my surroundings, and work out enough to make my body feel good. Usually everyone just focuses on the gym and how helpful it can be to help make people healthier. However, there are other components to living a healthier life style, such as how you eat, how you think about yourself and your environment. This community has taught me how to be the best me and makes me want to come to the gym to better my body and brain which is why I chose to research this community. This leads to my research question: What at Florida State helps students between the ages of 18-21 create a healthier lifestyle? I will be researching this by interviewing a trainer from the Leach Gym named Jacob Fishback along with researching the correlations between different aspects of a heathy lifestyle in different age groups. All of these factors and others are how one can achieve a healthier lifestyle because health is about how you feel not how you look to others or the number on a scale. He was able to give me another perspective on what his opinions on a healthy lifestyle is how to make them work at Florida State.

Eating Clean

Eating clean and in moderation is one of the main components that leads to a healthy lifestyle. At Florida State, students have been lucky enough to be exposed to a wide range of food options. However, it isn’t always easy to pick what you should be eating rather than what you want to eat.

Many different types of research and studies have been conducted involving how difficult it really is to eat healthy. In one article by the Oxford Academy, the main author J. Shepherd explains the barriers that students between the ages 11-16 face while trying to eat healthy. The barriers that were examined in this study were “poor school meal provision and ease of access to, relative cheapness of and personal taste preferences for fast food.” Shepherd tested 7 different school settings on how they were each going to implement different heathier eating options. In one specific example, in Norway, Connecticut a secondary school “increase the consumption of fresh fruits, vegetables, whole-wheat bread and low-fat dairy products, and decrease the consumption of high-sugar and high-fat snack foods.” Due to this, these students started to prepare their own food and snacks at homes and started to analyze nutritional facts. The overall outcome of all the studies was “Increasing the provision and range of healthy, affordable snacks and meals in schools and social spaces will enable them to exercise their choice of healthier, tasty options” (J. Shepherd). I have learned that healthy eating contributes to healthy grown and an overall feeling of well being.

At Florida State it has become increasingly easier to eat healthy. At the Leach gym they have a smoothie kiosk called “Natural.” They use fresh ingredients and protein powders to make healthy smoothies. We also have healthy options at the dining hall such as a hummus bar, different types of quinoa and gilled vegetables. They are currently remodeling Suwannee Dining hall so that there is more room for a wide range of healthy and moderately healthy food.

Exercising

Exercising is another key factor in living a healthy lifestyle. Exercising does not only make you feel good, it also releases endorphins within your brain that make you feel happier and positive. This effects how your body feels on a physical and mental level. At Florida State there are two amazing gym facilities: The Leach and The Health and Wellness Center. Both of these gyms provide adequate machines and equipment that help students with a wide range of workouts. There are also multiple other physical outlets that students can use, such as the IM fields and clubs, the Rez, and just being outside.

In an article written by the National Center for chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (CDC), they explain the importance between healthy eating and physical activity and how to portray this to different audiences. It is stated that “Students who are physically active tend to have better grades… improved cognitive performance…higher GPA’s, and standardized test scores.” The article continues to state that to accomplish this there should be physical classroom breaks and extracurricular activities that are incorporated within the student’s days and implemented in schools, such as through physical education classes. The article continues to explain on how to take action and promote these activities in schools. “Provide physical education programs, recess for elementary students, classroom-based physical activity, and extracurricular physical activities (e.g., sports programs, physical activity club)” (CDC, Health and Academic Achievement). It is proven that healthier students are better learners and this is due to physical activities. Through my research, I also believe that this is true for college students.

I personally take advantage of both of the gyms at FSU. While at the gym myself and other students use both the cardio and strength machines. There are also workout classes that are free for students. I have done a few of the classes and they really do make you work up a sweat. Having both gyms constantly available to students is really beneficial to maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Body Image

America is known as being the most overweight country in the world. This is due to the numerous amount of fast food restaurants and the large portion sizes that are always served. Most people are not conscious of how they look and just continue to not take care of their body by overeating and not exercising. However, I don’t believe that this is how most college students do. Especially at Florida State and other large state universities, college students tend to really pay attention to their body image. How others look at them, how others think about them, and how others act towards them really effect the way that one feels about themselves. These thoughts are related to self –esteem, it is about “how much you feel you are worth and how much other people value you” (Kidshealth.org).

A study written in the Eurasian Journal of Education Research researched if self-esteem and body size had any correlations. After testing 160 university students they found out that there is a correlation. “A prevalence of body dissatisfaction was reported, with 79% of girls reporting being unpleased with their physical appearance. Self-esteem and body dissatisfaction were in a significant negative correlation.” (Eurasian Journal, Self-Esteem and Body Image Perception in a Sample of University Students) I believe that how you feel about yourself is much more important than how others view you. However, this isn’t always the easiest concept to grasp because they are so many stereotypical looking girls around all universities.Most girls at Florida State fit the perfect stereotype of looking very skinny and having a good body. Since the workout culture is very large, one can assume that body image is a very prevalent issue here. It seems almost as if certain people compete to have the best bodies. During football season having a good body is almost as important as having one during the summer. This is because people try to wear the least amount of clothes possible on game days. These social events and the pressure of one’s peers make it very easy for boys and girls to both feel that body image and self esteem is very important.

Interview

He walked into the gym one day only to see a flyer that said “Apply for a fitness consulting position.” Jacob Fishback, a junior at the time knew that he wanted to become a certified trainer down the road so he thought that this would be the perfect opportunity and a step in the right direction. Jacob is a senior originally from Fort Lauderdale, Florida but has a lot of family that lives in Tallahassee. Ever since he was young and use to come here to visit his grandfather and he knew that he was going to be a Seminole.

Jacob is now a full time trainer at the Leach and Health and Wellness Center Gyms. To obtain this job he explained that you have to pass an exam and find your own clients. Now that he is a full time certified trainer he does more one on one training and is really involved with his clients. He believes that working out is only half the battle to living a healthy lifestyle and that eating plays a very large component in being healthy. Ever since Jacob was a freshman he has been food journaling. He says that it is apart of his healthy lifestyle and he really tries to maintain it, only giving himself a couple cheat meals a week. He believes that a healthy lifestyle is “When you can become disciplined enough to you know go to the gym or workout in whatever way you can a few times a week or however many times you want to, eat healthy, and learn to practice moderation. It is not about never indulging or doing anything that is unhealthy. Its about being smart about making these choices. If you can be healthy most of the time that is the biggest aspect in living a healthy lifestyle and staying sane.”Prior to coming to FSU Jacob said that he wasn’t that interested in working out and gaining muscle. However, the summer going into junior year he worked at a gym and started to gain interesting in this community. Jacob expressed to me that the workout culture at FSU is very large. “I don’t really know why but I think people around our age, kids in college have really been getting into working out…. I also think that younger people just want to look good that’s another really big thing too especially college kids, especially girls.” Jacob continued to explain to me that the Leach is more geared towards weight lifting where as the health and wellness center is better for cardio based workouts.After discussing different type of exercises, Jacob brought up body image and how he thinks it is really important. “Social media is really popular. And I think that with social media people care more about how they look. They seek other people approval and stuff like that and they compare themselves to others a lot and constantly go onto social media.” I believe that this is very true and especially at schools where Greek life is very prominent, this becomes an even larger issue.There are many different workout options and facilities that are available to FSU students. I asked Jacob what he personally thinks is the most effective workout style. He said, “I mean its definitely individual, it changes person to person. But the most generally effective thing would be a few 30 min sessions of cardio, some resistance training twice a week like weight training.” He continued to explain that it is more what you eat than how your workout. Jacob explained to me that what you eat is based off what is the appropriate amount of calories for your body. “calculate how many calories your body naturally burns a day without exercise then find out how much with exercise your body burns and that is how many calories you should main to eat a day if you want to maintain your current weight. And if you eat about that many calories and if you try to break down the carbs, fats and proteins into a good distribution where you are not overdoing any of the categories then that’ll be the healthiest way and to lose weight you just have to eat less than that number.”

After talking to Jacob about body image, eating healthy, and exercising I was wondering about the community that he worked in. I proceeded to ask him about this community and how he would describe it. He describes the gym community as passionate. This is because, “Everyone there is really into working out. They really like there job and really like teaching people about exercise.” And he continues to explain about how many resources their community has to offer and how students don’t know about all of them.

While talking to Jacob it really proved to me how resourceful FSU is and the dedication that the trainers at the gym put in to try to make their clients as healthy and happy with their body as possible. It seems like Jacob’s and the other trainer’s goals are the same as mine, to maintain a positive and healthy lifestyle!

Conclusion

As a teenager and now a young adult I have always struggled with keeping weight off. I am a true believer in the fact that feeling good about your body makes you feel good about yourself and it brings out a positive mood overall. Coming to FSU has made it much more difficult to maintain a healthier lifestyle due to all the tempting food around me. However, I have been using the resources such as the gyms and workout classes to help me keep the weight off. I have even started to food journal just like Jacob. Writing and researching this topic has really opened my eyes to the differing opinions of how to maintain a healthy lifestyle, to me, the most important of these is eating clean. You can control what you put in your body and eating clean benefits your mental state, physical appearance, and how you feel on the inside, and that is what is most important.

Work Cited

Health , Kids. “Body Image and Self Esteem.” Teens Health , 2015, kidshealth.org/en/teens/about-self-esteem.html.

Michal Kudlacek , Karel Fromel. “Promoting Healthy Lifestyle and Well-Being in Adolescents through Outdoor Physical Activity.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17 May 2017, resolver.ebscohost.com/openurl?sid=EBSCO%3acmedm&genre=article&issn=16604601&ISBN=&volume=14&issue=5&date=20170517&spage=&pages=&title=International+Journal+Of+Environmental+Research+And+Public+Health&atitle=Promoting+Healthy+Lifestyle+and+Well-Being+in+Adolescents+through+Outdoor+Physical+Activity.&aulast=Fromel+K&id=DOI%3a10.3390%2fijerph14050533&site=ftf-live.

National Center for Chronic Diseases Prevention and Health Promotion. “Health and Academic Achievement” https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/health_and_academics/pdf/health-academic-achievement.pdf

POP, Cristiana, crispotir@yahoo.com. "Self-Esteem and Body Image Perception in a Sample of University Students." Eurasian Journal of Educational Research (EJER), no. 64, July 2016, pp. 31-44. EBSCOhost, doi:10.14689/ejer.2016.64.2. http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=8a332101-8374-4b86-8d20-3d4237fcd704%40sessionmgr103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=117949000&db=eue

Wright, Tracy L., "Body Image and Healthy Lifestyle Behavior Among University Students" (2012). UNF eses and Dissertations. 402. h p://digitalcommons.unf.edu/etd/402

SHS