At the afternoon poster session, a poster that I found really interesting, relevant, and informative aimed to test whether the “Freshman 15” was real or not. This poster, titled “A Representative Study of Baruch Students’ Diets By Grade Level” was much like my groups’ paper waste poster in the sense that they sent out surveys to students to collect data. Unlike my group who collected paper usage data, they logged number of times per week students ate fast food or ate home cooked meals. They were able to collect data from all the grade levels at Baruch, which made me a bit jealous because my group was limited in our data collecting ability.
The group that made the poster suspected that higher-grade level students would make healthier eating choices than lower grade level students, therefore claiming that the “Freshman 15” was real. Interestingly enough, their data proved them correct because they found as the grade levels progressed from college freshman to Senior, the amount of fast food consumed decreases and the amount of home cooked meals consumed increased.
I thought these findings were really relevant and useful because most people disregard the “Freshman 15” as a myth, when really it is something that happens and makes people unhealthy without them being aware of it. There are many obesity related diseases a person can get, and the “Freshman 15” can be avoided if people are aware of it and know they have to watch their eating habits and not recklessly consume junk.
In addition to this poster being very informative with lots of graphs and data, it was really colorful and the group members were able to very persuasively convey their information. I nominated this group for most interesting presentation, but they didn’t win. They’re still winners to me!
Seems to me that this is an interesting project for Baruch students to do, given that the “Freshman 15” phenomenon largely refers to the eating habits of students who dorm. I think it’s safe to assume that the majority of Baruch students are commuters; CUNY in general is known as a collection of ‘commuter schools.’ I don’t have official numbers, but if most students are commuters, than most must live at home, where there are home-cooked meals. Why would commuter students suddenly shift to eating vast amounts of junk food during their freshman year of college when they still have access to home-cooked meals? Perhaps the “Freshman 15” as a concept is somehow influencing students. Maybe incoming freshmen internalize some idea of how college ‘should’ go, and do so accordingly.
It seems to me that they have missed a step here. Shouldn’t the study start with the null hypothesis: “there is no difference in weight of first year students from beginning to end of their first year”, and then design a study to find the cause if the null hypothesis is rejected? Did they address this in their introduction? Otherwise, the connection between eating habits and the Freshman 15 phenomenon is speculation. However, it’s not surprising to me that freshman have worse eating habits then upperclassman on average. I shudder at the thought of how my oldest daughter will eat during her first year at college.
This immediately caught my attention, being that’s all I heard about not too long ago! But thats really interesting, the relationship between upper class-man and eating habits. I would wonder if time has anything to do with it as well, along with the eating habits. We know that college is very different from high school when it comes to time management. So I feel since the seniors have been around longer, or even those one grade level higher, then can manage their time a whole lot better. Reducing stress and also making time for some exercise (as much as we all hate doing it haha). But nonetheless I liked the fact that the poster was about something relatable, that anyone of at the poster session could look at and understand it immediately. Posters come out a whole lot better when you know your audience!