The Differences Between a Sample of Syracuse University Male and Female Students on a Variety of Health Parameters

My Honors Capstone Project is entitled “The Differences Between a Sample of Syracuse University Male and Female Students on a Variety of Health Parameters. ” In the fall of 2007, Dr. Tanya Horacek, as part of a larger project involving several universities, collected extensive nutritionand health-related data from Syracuse University students. Dr. Horacek allowed me to access and analyze these data to examine if significant differences existed between male and female students. I chose to work with these data for my Capstone Project because it is a common belief that the college years are a time of accelerated weight gain and because the United States as a whole is currently in the midst of an obesity epidemic. My analysis of these data can help to understand factors that are associated with students’ weight status in college. The health parameters that I looked at include Body Mass Index (BMI), waist circumference, weight dissatisfaction, physical activity, fruit and vegetable consumption, and Eating Competency test scores (a survey that measures an individual’s attitudes about eating and food, acceptance of food, internal regulation abilities, and abilities and resources for managing food context). I chose to use these parameters because they are commonly used in nutrition research and are validated tools for nutrition evaluation. Numerous research studies in the past have used these parameters to examine samples of college students. Overall, these studies have found that students do in fact gain some weight in college. Possible contributing factors that have been identified include low fruit and vegetable consumption and low frequency of physical activity. Reasons for these two behaviors are numerous. Studies have found differences between genders for these and related behaviors. Because of this, I decided to assess whether any significant differences exist between male and female students for all health parameters examined and to look for correlations between parameters within each gender. I found significant differences between men and women for waist circumference, weight dissatisfaction, eating competency, and vigorous physical activity. I also found numerous correlations between health parameters. A couple of such connections are: the higher a person’s waist circumference, the more likely they were to be dissatisfied with their weight for both genders and the higher a person’s BMI, the more likely he or she was to be dissatisfied with their weight for both genders. Some correlations existed within one gender but not the other. For example, Eating Competency Total Score was strongly and negatively correlated to weight dissatisfaction for women but not for men. Many results were consistent with findings from previous research. This study was limited because it did not consider body composition, it excluded senior students, it may not be representative of demographic statistics of Syracuse University, and it only looked at one northeastern university so its results may not be applicable to other universities. Future research can use these findings to design interventions. The Syracuse University Department of Nutrition Science and Dietetics will be using it to design an obesity prevention program. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Methods 7 Analyses 9 Results 9 Discussion 13 Conclusion 17 Acknowledgements 18 References 19 Tables 21 Summary 24