Healthy Eating Essay Example for Free

Healthy Eating Essay I conducted research on a chosen topic for me to gain my secondary data, I research article on my chosen topic, printed them off and highlighted them in my appendix. I got the articles from books and online websites. I then produced a literature review of my articles. I also had to gain primary information which I got from my observations on 30 children at placement and 30 questionnaires send out to the parents but in order for me to do this I had to send out permission letters but before I was ale to do this I had to created my questionnaire and provision letter. Once I had all my permission letters and questionnaires back (managed to get 20 back), I collated my data and the produced charts by using bar charts, pie charts and tally charts. I was also able to carry out my observations because I had my permission slips and with this information I produced my data using bar charts, pie charts and tally charts. After producing all my charts, I had to analyse and summarise the date and find out the mode, range and median of each chart. I also produced my methodology, put into my appendix example of my questionnaire and permission letters as well as the printed out PowerPoint, say what topic I picked and why, the aims of my topic, what my sample target was and how many, who piloted my questionnaire and how I produced it, the ethical issues throughput my research project and confidentiality. An action plan was produced on each section in my research project by a grid which I filled out the dates of target completion and actual completion date. The last thing I did in my research project was state the strengths and weakness throughout the project, conclude what I have found out and reflect on the whole research project as well as having my bibliography which includes all the article I printed off, highlighted and reviewed. From carrying out this research project I found out that 13 children are healthy and 7 children are unhealthy out of the 20 children aged 4-5 years old. I also found out from my data that 4 year old boys are healthier than girls of that age and 5 year old girls are healthier than boys of that age. Another thing I found out was that 15 parents don’t follow the at well plate when providing their child with food however children are eating a variety of food from different food groups that are recurred for them to have a healthy diet. I also found out that children do eat fruit and the majority of parents don’t struggle to provide their child with a healthy diet as this can be seen in my data. Another thing I found out was that 15 parents don’t follow the at well plate  when providing their child with food. I chose to research the subject healthy eating because I believe it is important to give children a healthy lifestyle to help prevent and reduce their risk of anaemia, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis and obesity in the future. My research will be carried out by observing 30 children at placement between the age of 4-5 years and questionnaires on the parents. In order for me to carry out observations and questionnaires I will need permission from the parents of the children. I will gain permission by writing permission letters to the parents and get the signatures back to say whether they will complete my questionnaire and allow their child to be observed. I will get any secondary data/ literature information on healthy eating from books, articles, pictures and online websites which I use to help me back up my research and results. The type of data that will be used in my project is qualitive and quantitive data. My primary data will be shown by bar charts, pie chart and tally chart. I will select my participants by using every parents and child’s observation and questionnaire in order for me to gain the best information and results possible. The one and most important thing I will need to consider when collecting any data id to make sure it is valid and reliable and I will check whether this is by investigating the source to see if it is relevant. The problems that might arise during this research project maybe the lack of information and relevance of information. The ethical issues that I have to consider are confidentiality; keeping my observations and questionnaire anonymous a the way through my research project, person may withdraw their participants at anytime during my project, some parents may not want to provide the information in the questionnaire and therefore will not take part or want their child to contribute in the observation, remember to value and not judge the participants and allow them all to take part by sticking to equal opportunities and be sensitive to the children and their needs by balancing their rights of needs to protection and participants through applying the Children Act 1989 and 2004 as well as the UNCRC 1989 to this. I found that the strengths of my chosen methodology were that I could have a wide range of the sample target, the person doesn’t feel pressured into answering any questions, it was easy to generate quantitative date and easy to analyse. I found that the weaknesses of my chosen methodology were that not all people could have told the truth when answering the questions, people obtained different interpretations of some questions. When observing the children the strength I found was that it was easy to record down what I wanted to gain my information on and the weakness I found was that not all children were present at the day that I wanted to observe them therefore I had to carry out the observation on a day where all the children were present. I managed to receive back all 30 copies that were sending out to the parents which had all been completed the correct way. I had to stick to confidentiality all the way throughout my research project and in order for me to do this, I kept all my questionnaire and observations anonymous. I kept my questionnaires anonymous. I kept my observations anonymous by not including any child’s name when gaining my information. I recorded my information in bar charts, tally charts and pie charts. The recording methods I used were very useful because I was able to read the information from it need in order for me to gain my results. The figures which show this are that 13 children are healthy and 7 children are not healthy in chart 12. It also shows on chart 29 that only 4 children are unhealthy from the ethnicity groups; 1 child is unhealthy out of the 7 British children, 1 Polish child is unhealthy out of the 3 Polish children, the 1 Spanish child is unhealthy and the 1 Jewish person is unhealthy which meant that the other 16 children all together from each ethnicity group were healthy. This could have an impact on how many children understood what a healthy diet is or what a balanced diet is as seen in chart 13 which shows that 9 children understand what a healthy diet is or what a balanced diet is, 6 ch ildren don’t understand what a healthy diet is or what a balanced diet is, 1 child only know what a healthy diet is, 1 child understand what a healthy diet is or what a balanced diet is sort of, 1 child is only understood some of it and the other one child should do. Another thing that could have an impact on how healthy children are is chart 21, showing that 17 parents do the household shopping and 3 parents don’t therefore could have an outcome in how healthy the children eat because the parents are buying the food that  they will provide for their child to eat and these children could be given healthier food to eat e.g.: fruit and vegetables meaning they are eating a healthy diet. The fact that on 17 more children prefer to drink fizzy drinks to water didn’t have an impact on the majority of the 4-5 year olds having a healthy diet because we can see on chart 21 that 23 parents do the household shopping out of the 30 in the class and therefore these children could be given healthier food to eat e.g.: fruit and vegetables meaning they are eating a healthy diet. From chat 20 we see that 15 children mange to eat 5 fruit and vegetables per day and 5 children don’t eat 5 fruit and vegetable, however they many still mange to have some fruit during the day and this is than seen in chart 9 that 11 children have fruit and vegetable in their lunch boxes and on a daily basis. One thing that influenced the outcome of my research was most of the parents have jobs that enquire them to work with children or to look after peoples health, therefore because parents were doing this in their jobs, they know about why it is important to provide their child with a healthy diet and their children than was being encouraged to eat healthy and had a healthy diet. Another thing that influenced the outcome of my research is that the majority of parents provided their child with freshly cooked food meaning that the children were getting a variety of food to make up the healthy diet. 85% of the children were having a lot of energy during the day which had an influence on the outcome because if children eat a healthy food they are more likely to grow and develop better and don’t feel so sleepily during the day as seen in chart 23 that 16 children don’t feel sleepily during the day. The action plan that is in my appendix helped me complete my project as I was able to record the dates of completion on each section in the project and stick to it. It also helped me to manage my time effectively. I produced a questionnaire that links to my chosen topic healthy eating, where I wrote open-ended questions, yes and no questions and multiple answer questions in order for me to gain the information I want. I numbered each question 1 to 28 because the more questions in my questionnaire would give me more valid data to produce my charts and get reliable results. Once I had my questionnaire produced, a Level3 student in Health and Social Care piloted my questionnaire and found that there were no issues in my questionnaire. I therefore typed up my questionnaire and printed 30 copies for my sample target. I predict that if children aged 4-5 years old eat healthy, we should than find that they are having a healthy diet. If the reason for them having a healthy diet is eating a variety of food and getting the intake of mutations required from different food groups e.g.: fruit and vegetables. I expect to find that if parents provide their children with a healthy diet than they are more likely to eat healthy and have a healthy diet and if parents provide children with an unhealthy diet they are more likely to eat unhealthy and have an unhealthy diet. I expect to find the type of food that children eat on a daily basis to have an effect on how healthy they eat. I predict that if children are involved in helping with any type of preparing of food at home they are more likely to want to eat different kinds of food which means they will than be eating healthy. I expect to find, the ethnicity of children will not have an affect on how healthy they eat. I predict that if children have older siblings they will be influenced by their eating habits and they maybe passed down onto the younger sibling. I expect children who manage to have 5 fruit and vegetables per day will be  seen to have a healthier diet. From carrying out this research project on healthy eating I found out those 13 children are healthy out of the 20 children aged 4-5. I also found out that children do eat fruit and the majority of parents don’t struggle to provide their child with a healthy diet as this can be seen in my data. Another thing I found out was that 15 parents don’t follow the at well plate when providing their child with food however children are eating a variety of food from different food groups that are recurred for them to have a healthy diet. My research findings will help in my practice and support the development of my own practice when working with children and parents because I can be a good role model for the children and encourage the children that are not eating healthy to eat healthier, it gives me a better understanding of why children need to eat healthily and have 5 a day and I can back up my practice with evidence from NHS choices, The British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) and Food Standards Agency and I can also gain knowledge on anything I may not know. The perditions and expectations in my hypothesis about the findings of my research seem to be shown as testable statements because the whole outcome of the project gave me the results which i was hoping to find. Books: Bruce. T and Meggitt (2002) Child Care and Education Third Edition, Italy: Hodder Stoughton Tassoni. P et al (2007) Child care and education 4th edition, London: Heinemann Websites: ETC Network (2011) Healthy Lifestyle for Children [Online] available at: http://everychildhealthy.com/blog/healthy-lifestyle-for-children Accessed on: 18th March 2012 NHS Choices (2011) – 5 A Day and your family [Online] available at: http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/5ADAY/Pages/Family.aspx Accessed on: 18th March 2012 KidsAndNutrition (2000-2012) How Many Calories Does Your Child Need? [Online] available at: http://www.kidsandnutrition.co.uk/how-many-calories-does-your-child-need.html Accessed on: 12th May 2012 BBC (2012) Nutritional needs in children [Online] available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/treatments/healthy_living/nutrition/life_children.shtml Accessed on: 4th June 2012 Department of heath (2004) – 5 A Day Made Easy: Just Eat More (fruit Veg) [Online] available at: http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/documents/digitalasset/dh_4088835.pdf Accessed on: 4th June 2012 British Nutrition Foundation (2009-2012) – Nutrition throughout life: School age children [Online] available at: http://www.nutrition.org.uk/nutritionscience/life/school-children Accessed on: 4th June 2012 Oliver (2008) Jamie’s manifesto (part II) [Online] available at: http://www.jamieoliver.com/news/jamie-s-manifesto-part-ii Accessed on: 15th June 2012 Weight Loss Resources (2000-2012) Good Nutrition for children [Online] available at: http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/children/nutrition_calorie_needs.htm Accessed on: 4th June 2012