Set to be the largest health study ever conducted on a college campus, Science through Translational Research in Diet and Exercise (STRIDE), a research project initiated in 2007 by the Cal Poly kinesiology department, will examine the physical health of college students and their awareness about their personal health.
Slated to begin next week, the project, called FLASH, will evaluate about 3,700 freshmen from the 2013 class, measuring various aspects of students’ physical health including body mass index, resting heart rate and blood pressure, as well as analyzing how students perceive their personal health.
Dr. Ann McDermott, the director of STRIDE, hopes that this research project will shed light on how and why a college student’s health varies over their college career.
“Statistics show that 37 percent of high school students are overweight or obese and that 67 percent of adults are overweight or obese. We want to find out what is happening in that four year period of time that is creating that big of a difference,” McDermott said.
One reason that might account for the 30 percent jump in obesity rates is that college students have a skewed view of their physical health, McDermott said.
Kyla Tom, a graduate student of kinesiology and student leader of FLASH, agreed that many college-aged people do not have an accurate understanding of what it means to be healthy.
“I think that a lot of college students look at themselves physically and judge their health by if they look fit or not. In reality though, a lot of risk factors for disease don’t depend on how low your body weight is,” Tom said. “College students might just not be aware.”
Acquiring the participation of such a large volunteer group poses a challenge.
“Getting freshman really interested in the study will be the hardest part. We’ve really been pushing social marketing and have been talking to the RAs to try to hype up the study,” Tom said.
Some forms of social marketing STRIDE will use includes a video explaining the study, which will most likely be posted online, and fliers in the freshmen dorms, Tom said.
Lauren Ferrigno, a parks and recreation administration sophomore, thinks that promoting the study is key in getting freshmen volunteers.
“I would have been interested in doing it as a freshman if I had enough information about it and knew a lot about why they were doing it,” she said.
McDermott feels that there will be plenty of students interested in learning about their health in depth.
“I think students will want to get involved because how many college freshman can say they have an accurate understanding of their body composition? I think many students overestimate their health,” McDermott said.
Nutrition freshman Jocelyn Fry, who considers herself a healthy individual, expressed interest in participating in the study this fall.
“I’d like to see how my body changes over the course of my time in college,” Fry said.
Jenny Graser, a liberal studies senior, however, would not have wanted to participate in the study.
“I think the study itself would be very beneficial and if they can get volunteers, then that’s great. I personally wouldn’t want to do the study because I feel like it’s private information that I’d be giving out,” she said.
Kelli DeAngelis, a kinesiology freshman, said that data obtained in California might be different from elsewhere in the country, but thought that it would reveal interesting information regardless.
“I feel like people at Cal Poly are generally pretty active. There are a lot of options for ways to stay active like the outdoors. And it’s free,” DeAngelis said.
The study will provide crucial information about Cal Poly students’ health that is currently missing for college-aged individuals.
“Basically, we have information for high school students and we have it for adults. There’s a gap in between those two age groups where we are missing the data for college-aged people,” Tom said.
In order to fill in the missing data representing college students, the freshman volunteers will complete a questionnaire and/or a physical exam.
The questionnaire will be e-mailed to volunteers and includes 117 questions about demographic information, perceived health, screen time (the amount of non-school related time students spend in front of the computer or television), alcohol and drug consumption and physical activity, Tom said.
In preliminary research conducted in spring 2008, residents from Sierra Madre and Yosemite dorms and students in large kinesiology lectures, such as KINE 250 (Healthy Living), took about 20 minutes to complete the survey.
After filling out the questionnaire, students will be encouraged to have a physical examination, which includes taking measures of height, weight, waist circumference, resting blood pressure, resting heart rate and body fat percentage.
The freshmen will undergo their first physical examination during their first quarter at Cal Poly, which is this fall. The next physical examination, conducted on the same group of volunteers, will take place spring quarter.
Including both a questionnaire component and an objective measurement component makes this study potentially the largest research project of its kind, Tom said.