Essay Sample on Dietary Practices

Introduction

According to Afshin et al. (2015), dietary practices have a significant impact on a person's health. For instance, the intake of high-calorie foods is likely to contribute to diabetes and obesity while a balanced diet can improve the health of an individual. The research will focus on evaluating the health outcomes due to food perceptions, preferences, and intake, as well as ascertain cuisine orientations of 800 secondary school students of Al Ain-Abu Dhabi.

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Hypothesis

This paper seeks to ascertain the fact that good dietary practices lead to healthy lifestyles and the opposite is true.

Project Objective

The objective of this research is to evaluate the food consumption practices of secondary school students at Key Stage 3, aged between 11-14 years (males and females) in Al Ain and to understand if dietary changes can make a difference to the health status of this cohort of students.

Project Outline

The study will take 18 months to complete. Participants will be interviewed, seminars held with focus groups and questionnaires will be formulated and sent to respondents, food recipes that the schools use to cook food for the students, as well as dietary patterns within the student's homes, will be examined. The primary data collection technique in the study will incorporate a subjective approach by obtaining a dietary recall. Food consumption data will be collected using diaries 4 days -7 days. In addition, blood samples will be taken for the purpose of testing blood sugar level or energy level and the level of fat. The collection of blood samples is done after 24 hours of consumption of food. The researcher will analyse the food diary or collect a weekly diary structure from students, nannies and parents to understand the dietary practices of every family using face-to-face sessions. The collection of anthropometric data for instance height and weight which will assist in the assessment of the children's nutrition. The researcher will use ENA (Emergency Nutrition Assessment) Software for collecting and analysing the data.

Project Context/Relevance

The research project is crucial to facilitate an understanding of factors leading to the prevalence of health issues such as high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity among a subset of secondary school students in Al Ain. The incidence of obesity has increased with each year 2.36% becoming obese and 0.28% advancing to the extremely obese state. Incidence was 9.6 fold higher in boys than girls (Albooshi et al., 2016). This group of students does not have a definite feeding habit since they consume a lot of sugary items and fatty foods for example in schools. Besides, many factories target this age group for fast foods like fries (Qazaq et al., 2010). The researcher will first take measurements of the blood samples to understand the prevalence of health problems. The study is also essential as it will enable educational institutions in Al-Ain to understand how they can contribute to the improvement of the health of the students which consequently improves life in the society (Al Amiri et al., 2015). A study by Dr. Al Tarrah confirmed that encouraging parents to switch their children's feeding habits and the introduction of physical activities was effective (Al Tarrah et al., 2016).

The research aims to fill the research gap about dietary practices of secondary school students in Al Ain between the ages of 11 to 14 years. After drawing the blood samples, the researcher will proceed to use the ENA software to understand the prevalence of health problems. The research project is also essential to caregivers and parents as it enables them to understand how food consumption patterns are affecting the secondary school students and how they can implement interventions to change the dietary practices. Furthermore, the students will also learn how their food patterns affect their health and how they can facilitate improvement in their health.

Proposed Methodology and Work Plan Including Gantt Chart

The number of participants for the study will be 800 hundred students from different secondary schools in Al Ain. Half of the participants will be male, and the other half will be female students, and they will be selected using random stratified probability sampling (Robson & McCartan, 2016; Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2002). The students will be aged 11-14 years.

Observations

The observations will involve structured, systemic evaluation of dietary practices of students during break and lunch time to understand what the sample is attracted to the selection of food choices. It also allows live data from the schools involved in the study and will measure food consumption through the incorporation of a 24-hour dietary recall food diaries 4 days, 7 days to gauge the amount of energy in the body. This study aims at assessing the dietary preferences, the details about cuisine-culture orientation, food perceptions, and beliefs of various students in Abu Dhabi-Al Ain secondary schools (Muhammad, Fathelrahman, &TasbihUllah, 2016, Alhomoud, Basil, &Bondarev, 2016). Subsequently, the dietary test results especially triglyceride and LDL levels from blood samples will facilitate the evaluation of the prevalence of diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure among other diet-related health conditions. Henceforth, students will have access to a nutritional program to check the nutritive value of food.

One-To-One and Focus Group Interviews

During the research project which lasts for 18 months, information sheets will be sent to the interviewees with a consent form before the interview session. The researcher will meet with the participants who are students as well as carers and parents to discuss the relevance and orientation of the study (Harcourt & Sargeant, 2012). Semi-structured interviews will be used in this study as this allows the researcher to have a guide that serves as a checklist of topics to be covered. The importance of focus groups is that they provide in-depth data for the study. Conducting focus group interviews assures the collection of detailed information. Subsequently, the semi-structured interviews enable the participants to provide the information which they consider private as they are assured of the confidentiality of the information by the researcher. This section of the study will take approximately four months of the project timeframe.

Moreover, online software such as LifeScan to measure glucose levels. Furthermore, the weight, height, age, and sex of all participants will be taken into consideration to determine their Body Metabolic Rate. In the process of collecting the samples or the measurements, the process will ensure reliability and validity that meet all the requirements for this research project.

Ethical Issues in the Assessment of the Participants

First, it is crucial to acquire informed consent from the students and the caregivers or parents. Secondly, adhering to issues of privacy and confidentiality is crucial since this will be investigating the personal health of the students. It is important to ensure that the researcher does not inflict any harm, either physical or psychological, to the participants (Allmark et al., 2009). Lastly, all data will be saved in a secure password protected USB, and each file will have its password. The UAE Department of Education and Knowledge in collaboration with Aldar Academics will certify the procedures of the study to confirm the level of ethics.

Randomised Control Trial (RCT) and Sample Size Calculation

Before conducting the actual study, the researcher will undertake a pilot study that will involve a sample population of approximately eighty (80) students. The pilot study will involve the collection of data about food diaries as well as weekly routines. Furthermore, the pilot study will have its own data analysis and results of the study. This is because the research involves primary data collection; hence, the pilot study will facilitate an understanding of the experimental validity.

The researcher will utilise random stratified probability sampling to select an approximate of 800 hundred Al Ain secondary school students aged 11-14 years to undergo the study. The study will then follow the same outline as the RCT to ensure that the outcomes of the main study do not contain bias and errors.

The Draw and Write Technique

The draw and write technique primarily involves the researcher prompting the participants in a study to draw and write specific feedback essential for the study. In this study, the participants will be enquired to write about their culture-cuisine orientation which influences them to exhibit particular dietary practices as well as the issues which they think contribute to particular health outcomes. Further, the researcher will request the participants to provide feedback concerning the prevalence of diet-related health problems they may be experiencing. The technique is essential as it enables the researcher to collect individual feedback from each participant about issues that were not covered during the one-to-one interviews. Therefore, the method can be referred to as a strategy that ensures the collection of valid, reliable, and adequate data without leaving out any relevant information.

Food Records and Food Recalls

Usually, schools formulate schedules for the meals or the recipe they cook for the students on a weekly basis. As such, the weekly records which the school has used in the past will be a source of information regarding the dietary practices of the students. The food records will analyse how particular dietary practices are related to specific illnesses. On the other hand, if the students do not eat at school, the researcher will rely on food recalls of the standard diet for the meals they take at home. The essence of the study is to collect data within the secondary schools in Abu Dhabi-Al-Ain and analyse the nutritional practices about the health issues that the population is facing. Currently, the population including adolescents is facing a high prevalence of conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity (Loney et al., 2013).

Food Frequency Questionnaires or Diet Histories

Some diet practices have been prevalent for decades in the region. For instance, the fact that majority of the population are Muslims and fast during Ramadhan means that they lack food during daytime which is equivalent to unhealthy dietary practices and may contribute to the development of diabetes (Afandi, Hassanein, Majd, &Nagelkerke, 2017, Beshyah et al., 2018). Therefore, diet histories show food consumption patterns which can be used to understand how dietary practices are connected to particular health outcomes. As such, the research will need to rely on the diet histories of the students in Al Ain schools and the nutritional practices to create a hypothesis of how nutritional practices contribute to health outcomes. Subsequently, questionnaires will be used to inquire information from the respondents concerning the standard diet practices in their families and communities. The information is crucial to facilitate an understanding of whether the diet-related illnesses have been prevalent in the past decades.

Food-Rating Techniques and Instruments

After the analysis of the dietary practices of the students, a food-rating analysis will be completed to estimate the dietary practices contributing to the prevalence of diet-related health conditions. The particular food consumption survey will involve the assessment of the nutritional composition of food products a...