Monday, May 8, 2017

Final Presentation

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1wWVmQqyYPccpg-K-S9Feg8zPrK-wT6OKgCGiUbI5_q4/edit?usp=sharing

Saturday, May 6, 2017

Final Literature Review!

https://nevadaunr-my.sharepoint.com/personal/jmiravalle_nevada_unr_edu/Documents/FINAL%20LIT%20REVIEW!!!.docx?web=1

Friday, April 28, 2017

Introduction + Abstract

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EuZO6n8B48ZXMZt5-zL1vkEwYZ-A3RY7Gc9fdQ90AtY/edit?usp=sharing

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Ch. 7 Annotation

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ciu4sLQSqXP5wwb-iwf__jszmKNZSnrU4aXT_UvjwZU/edit?usp=sharing

Friday, April 21, 2017

Conclusion Section

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pizQQe7OrMdu2AgWQ-wuYKKqrlTJswqeVsu6qaxFzd4/edit?usp=sharing

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Discussion Section

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iRC69mNe5EfqsRXzRWDIxvq-dKXZ_hu4QC1-drVXKP8

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Ch. 4 annotations

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19_Px8AOL7heLjXsmCgIbE3e6gxflNkM0U7dVqzHyins/edit?usp=sharing

Ch. 3 annotations

Friday, April 7, 2017

Method's Section

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TZ9nOd3eX1iHGgfnsS9RDrFkHNTDmBD-xhZM5adXRlY/edit?usp=sharing

Revised Results Section

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AoTnUw825DD1MhXujIKrCRdMbSoc64AAmdI5Z8i8gDc/edit?usp=sharing

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Ch. 2 Annotation

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NlyRvrRa7bbnNRHQOYaTvDllUqdMu_LmJxC1Hrw4BWU/edit?usp=sharing

Ch. 1 Annotation

Friday, March 17, 2017

Results Section

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NbYgtlKR2zH18nx857g0B-jtfzem61Ls7eKKWvCtVyU/edit?usp=sharing

Sunday, March 5, 2017

Synthesis Proposal

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uxT0leSSjc1KgCFczbWXjgCWZEKkcx75B_0s7oQ7iG0/edit?usp=sharing

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Synthesis Matrix pt 2

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zOtF_CH3l60tCHJUoS-eMb9O1tRFTXC4weLbV3Qbo5I/edit?usp=sharing

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Synthesis Matrix pt. 1

link to the google doc:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MLYiv0yMrcO3VD7pEstiatQiQPAydEeri35FC2VzU0M/edit?usp=sharing



Sunday, February 19, 2017

Journal #3

Article #1:
  1. K Hubbard; A Must; M Eliasziw. (2013). What Elementary Schoolchildren Bring from Home to Eat at School. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 113(9).
  2. This source would be considered a secondary source because it covers a study of the topic related to nutrition but not does not actually answer my question. This article covers what students bring to school in their lunches but focuses more on the processed food aspect rather than the actual nutritional value of their lunch.
  3. This source is relevant to my research question because it studies what students have packed in their lunches. It does not touch on school-lunches which is also part of my question but it will still be helpful in discussing the packed lunches side of it.
  4. This journal article will be used in the results section of my literature review because it is all about packed lunches. I am not too sure it will be useful in any other part of my literature review because it is specifically just about packed lunches and I also want evidence of school lunches compared to them.
  5. When working with this source, I found it interesting that this was a very short article so I am not sure how useful it will be when getting further along with my research process


Article #2:
  1. Golley, R; Baines, E; Bassett, P. School lunch and learning behaviour in primary schools: an intervention study. Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 64(11). 1280-1288.
  2. This source would be considered a primary source for my project because it directly relates to my question. This article talks about how nutrition can affect the behavior and learning behaviors of the students.
  3. This is relevant to my research question because I am asking what the nutritional difference is between packed lunches from home and school-lunches are and I will also touch on how the nutrition affects the children's learning development.
  4. This journal will be used in the results section for my literature review because it provides some very important evidence that will be used to support my question. It also touches on how the nutrition affects children's behavior and learning which I feel would be a good topic to discuss as well
  5. I found a lot of this article to be very interesting when reading around in it. The authors of this organized the study very well and is has a lot of good information that will be useful.



Article #3:
  1. Prynne, Celia J; Handford, Caroline; Dunn, Valerie. The quality of midday meals eaten at school by adolescents; school lunches compared with packed lunch. Public Health Nutrition, 16(6). 1-8.
  2. This would be a secondary source because it is a study that will provide lots of helpful information for my research. It talks a lot about how the mid day meal is very crucial and has lots of effects on learning and behaviors. Again, I am more interested in the difference of packed lunches and school lunches but this still has a lot of useful information.
  3. This source will be relevant to my research question because the goal of this study was, “To compare food and nutrient intakes from midday meals provided by schools with those from packed lunches and to estimate the contribution from food eaten at midday to the total daily energy and nutrient intakes of teenagers.” I will be able to incorporate this into a lot of my literature review also because it provides some good statistics that will help me backup my claims.
  4. I speculate that this article will be useful in the results section of my article as I will probably be able to use some of the information in my introduction as well
  5. I found it interesting that this article really emphasized on the midday meal and how important it is as well as all the nutritional values. It is a very well structured article that has a lot of specific information as well.  


Article #4:
  1. Sweitzer, Sarah J; Byrd-Williams, Courtney E; Ranjit, Nalini. (2015). Development of a Method to Observe Preschoolers' Packed Lunches in Early Care and Education Centers. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 115(8). 1249-1259.
  2. This could be considered a primary source because it covers the topic that I am interested in but at a younger age group. It focuses on preschool aged and I have not found one that does so yet. Most of my sources are the elementary level while this one they are engaging the pre-schoolers.
  3. This is relevant to my research question because it talks about how early education in nutrition and the earlier you have a sense of nutritional values, the better it is. They are really trying to enforce healthier lifestyles into younger children in schools. In this study, they required parents to bring in meals and snacks that they would pack for their children and evaluate the nutrition.
  4. This will be useful in the results section of my literature review especially adding in another age group or group in general.
  5. The most interesting thing about this article for me was that it is a preschool that they were studying which will provide me with information that i have not yet found in this particular group.

Friday, February 17, 2017

In class work 2/6-2/8

  1. Rees, G. A., Richards, C. J., & Gregory, J. (2008, October 1). Food and Nutrient Intakes of Primary School Children: a comparrison of school meals and packed lunches. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics. 420-427
  2. Cohort
  3. The method of cohort is used in this article in a way that they did not know the outcome of this research whether packed lunches had better nutritional values than school lunches. The took a sample of 120 students aged 6-11 and observed the items they consumed and the differences in nutritional intake between those who ate school lunches and packed lunches (420). In this study, “Children taking a packed lunch to school were con- suming approximately double the amount of sugar and 50% more sodium and saturated fat in their midday meal compared with those having a school lunch. However packed lunches were providing children with more calcium, iron and fruit” (420). They compared the calculations from all different nutrients like fats, protiens, calcium and different vitamins between both meals of the students. This method enabled them to find the differences in packed lunches versus school lunches.
  4. The conclusion of this study was, “Very few packed lunches contained vegetables, and fruit intake was particularly low for those having a school meal. Children taking a packed lunch to school were consuming approximately double the amount of sugar and 50% more sodium and saturated fat in their midday meal compared with those having a school lunch. However packed lunches were providing children with more calcium, iron and fruit” (427). This method allowed them to get to these results with each of the different things they measured.
  5. I found this article and study to be very interesting as well as useful for my research process. This article will definietly come into play during my research process.

  1. Rush, E; McLennan, S; Obolonkin, V. (2014). Project Energize: whole-region primary school nutrition and physical activity programme; evaluation of body size and fitness 5 years after the randomised controlled trial. British Journal of Nutrition. 111(2), 363-371.
  2. RCT
  3. This was a region-wide, whole-wchool nutrition and activity program that was also a randomized control trial. They got all the schools in the New Zeland region to participate in this study and had a nutrition specialist assigned to each school. This method of RCT allowed them to have numerous schools at random pick to reduce bias. In the article, it states, “The long-term regional commitment to the Energize program in schools may potentially lead to a secular reduction in the prevalence of overweight and obesity and gains in physical fitness, which may reduce the risk of developing obesity and type 2 diabetes.” For this type of study, bias is an important factor so by the RCT method, it reduced the chance for bias as well.
  4. The conclusion of this study was the results of this were cpmparing all the statistical data they had collected from the different schools, different ages, and different genders. Thye compared all the results from over the years and eliminated the ones that were not complate or accurate. This method alowed them to come to this conclusion because RCT is a controlled trial just like this was but you ahve the participants that are chosen and who participate and there is usually no bias in this type of method.
  5. Something interesting I found was that I thought this study would have better results and a more clear conclusion of what exaclt they found. They just compared the statistics of each student and group where I thought more results would of what they learned about it.

  1. Spence, S; Matthews, JNS; White, M. (2014). A repeat cross-sectional study examining the equitable impact of nutritional standards for schoollunches. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. 11(1), 128-139.
  2. Cross sectional
  3. The researchers of this study conducted a cross sectional study in 12 Elementry English primary schools before and after legislation and they recorded the dietary intake of students ages 4-7. This method is used for different groups of people who differ in the diestary inatake (variable) but do have something in common or share characteristics (age and school). In the methods section of this study it states, “Dietary intake was recorded for 4-7y olds using a validated, prospective four-day food diary. Socio-economic status was estimated using the Index of Multiple Deprivation; three groups of approximately equal sizes were created. Linear, mixed-effect models explored the effect of year, lunch type (school or home-packed lunch), level of deprivation and the interaction(s) between these factors on children's diets” (128). This method is very useful for this particular study because of all the circumstances and variables they are testing. This method enables them to not only get the results that they are aiming for but also anything else they may discover through the process like if oler kids eat significantly different than the younger ones, etc.
  4. The conclusion of this study was, “By 2008-9, NMES at lunchtime and in total diet was lower for children consuming a school lunch; this change was equitable across the deprivation groups” (128). They also measured the Viatmin C intake which they found that it inceased more for children in the deprived group. This method allowed them to get these results of the Vitamin C intake because they measured it along with the other dietary intake.
  5. I found this article to be very interesting and this method could be one of the important ones and this is a great example of that. After reading through this article, I am not sure if this will be a primary article I use, however, I will be sure to look for more articles with the corss sectional method.


  1. Chen, He. (2012). Effect of organic school meals to promote healthy diet in 11-13 year old children. A mixed methods study in four Danish public schools. Appetite. 59(3), 866-876.
  2. Mixed Methods
  3. This was a study to test if organic foods served in schools helped promote healthy eating habbits. They also looked into if the food they ate affected their behaviors and study habits. It is becoming a bigger study to see how nutrition affects learning developments and behaviors. This method allowed them to study multiple aspects of how the organic foods help the students healthy eating habits and their learning development. It states, “The aim of this study was to investigate whether organic school meals can be an effective strategy to provide healthy food to children and promote their healthy eating habits. Furthermore, the study aimed to examine pupils’ attitudes predicting intention and behaviours in relation to organic food and health” (866).
  4. The conclusion of this study was, “ In summary, from the qualitative interviews it appears that the pupils in both school groups possessed basic knowledge about organic food and health, their attitude towards organic food and health positively impacted their intention to purchase organic food, and both groups of pupils intended to adapt to a healthier diet” (876). This method allowed them to get to these results of what effect organic foods have on the students.
  5. This was a very interesting article to read through because this is one of the topics I was thinking about researching whether organic foods really do have an impact, but I changed my topic but this is related to the school lunches side of it.


Sunday, February 12, 2017

Journal #2

What is your topic? Or what are your key words thus far?
  • Validation
  • Intake
  • Questionnaire
  • Self report
  • RCT


What is your research question? Have you decided to change it at all? And, if you have, how do I know that the way in which this question is formulated is appropriate to conduct a literature review with a systematic approach?


My research question is: What is the difference in nutritional value of packed lunches vs. school prepared lunches?
I have modified my question a little bit. Instead of comparing school lunches in high income school districts versus low income school districts, I am just comparing the nutritional value of a packed lunch from home compared to the school lunches. A lot of people think that just because they are packing a lunch for their child or for themselves it is a lot healthier than the prepared foods that the school serves. I am very curious to see of this is the case and what the studies say behind this topic.

And what are the definitions on which it depends?


RCT: I am basically asking a question of, “what is the difference between x and y” and this method is used is a Randomized Controlled Trial; Scientific medical experiment to reduce bias
Questionnaire (Cross Sectional): Uses different groups of people who differ in the variable of interest but share other characteristics like socioeconomic status, educational background, and ethnicity to collect data.
Self Report: this method I most likely won't use much of because I am more interested in the scientific knowledge of this rather than someone doing their own report because they might be bias in a way that they think what they pack/eat is nutritious when it may not be the best
Validation: this is a method that will become useful as it has been some of the key words in my search results and in some of the articles.

What is your hierarchy of evidence? And how do I know you going about finding the most appropriate evidence/method for your research question?


I am still working with this part of the research, I have an idea what my hierarchy is but it still might change/ add more
  • RCT
  • Questionnaire (cross sectional)
  • Direct observation


How do I know that the remit of the method itself is selecting the research, rather than just you on a whim? + 1 thing you found interesting + how you imagine using the source


I first started off of a very broad search to then narrow down my results with the subject terms. I wanted to just start off with what I knew about my topic and key words and with the RCT method. I started off by searching “Subject Terms: “school lunches”; “RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED-TRIAL” and had these results:


Article #1: journal article, validation studies


Richter, S. L. (2012). Accuracy and reliability of direct observations of home-packed lunches in elementary schools by trained nutrition students. JOURNAL OF THE ACADEMY OF NUTRITION AND DIETETICS, 112(10), 1603-1607.


This article is directly related to my topic of nutritional value in school lunches. In the preview of this article it states, “Dietary assessment of home-packed lunches is challenging compared with assessment of standardized school meals due to greater diversity of items, nonstandard portions, and opaque containers.” Just from reading through this and looking through the article, I already know this will be useful. Some of the subjects I also found to be very useful when searching for subject terms. From here I clicked on the term ‘Questionnaire’ which led me to my next article. When searching different subject terms, more specific articles come up. Some of the other subjects that were helpful to search were, dietary intake, nutrition and dietetics, consumption, and dietary intake. I have added these terms to my subject terms to narrow down my results. This is a screenshot of the search I used and the first article that shows up is the one I am talking about that are related to my topic which is super helpful. When I clicked preview, it gave me all the subject terms that were super helpful to specify more articles.  
Article #2: Article, journal article, multicenter study


Hubbard, K. L. (2014). What's in children's backpacks: foods brought from home. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 114(9), 1424.


This article is specifically about packed lunches and what they are consisted of. This is a cross sectional baseline of data that was taken from the GREEN project lunch study. This article gives me a lot of important information that will be useful in my literature review specifically about the packed lunches and what they consist of. They include a lot of statistics that have very good evidence about this certain topic. It breaks each food item down with the given statistic such as snacks, fruits, desserts, and beverages. This article is super helpful because it is very specific and even talks a little bit about food packing behavior which is something that I have never thought about. This is meaning the behavior in which is the reasoning of why people pack certain things in their lunches.  I didn't find any more subject terms from this particular article, however, it does touch on the subject terms of packed lunches, variation, and perceptions. This is a screenshot of a part of the journal that was very interesting to me. They actually take pictures of samples of some of the students packed lunches and compare and evaluate them. They consider this to be a primary source of this journal which is very useful.
This was also very interesting in the way they evaluated the lunches, they assigned standards in which if the lunches met the standards, then it received a point. This is what the standards included:
From the references from this journal, I noticed a lot more key terms that helped me for my topic. Here in reference #20, it says “Nutritional comparison of packed and school-lunches” which is exactly what I am looking for. This is a very specific article that is definitely going to be a lot of help for me.
Anything else interesting happen?
I am going to continue to find more articles now that I have more of an idea of what subject terms to use and I will continue to also modify my research question as needed.

Friday, February 10, 2017

Older and Wiser

Sunday, February 5, 2017

Journal #1

What was the process by which you narrowed down potential topics to two appropriate ones? And how were these decisions made on the basis of either class discussion, or our required, course textbook (Aveyard 2014), or both?


The process by which I narrowed down potential topics was pretty simple for me. I knew I wanted to do something nutrition related as that is what I hope to have a profession in, in my future, so it was a matter of who I wanted to focus on. My sister is currently a 1st grade teacher and has noticed students who do not have very healthy lunches are different learners than students who have a balanced, healthier diet. This really caught my attention as this has become a bigger study in today's society. I was debating on the topics of nutrition of younger students, more specifically school lunches, or how their development is affected with their physical and mental activities based on their diets. I then began to research articles in the Journal of Public Health and there were many articles related to nutrition of students and how school lunches affects their development and studies. After reading the textbook about picking a topic that is specific enough, it helped me narrow down to the right topic.


What research question did you choose, and how are I can be sure you're making a reasoned, academic judgement on the basis of chapters 1-3 (Aveyard 2014)?


My research question is: “What is the difference in nutritional value of a school lunch in an affluent school district and a lower income school district and how does it affect the students’ learning?” After reading Aveyard text, I narrowed down my question by getting a specific topic of nutrition affecting students learning and more specifically, school lunches nutritional values. I have keywords of school lunches, nutritional value, and high/low income school district.


What article (or articles) are you basing this question on, and what type of article is it (research, theory, policy, practice) (citation[s] in APA, please)?
Wojcicki, Janet, M. (2006, September). Programs and Policies to Improve Child Health. American Journal of Public Health. 96(9).
This is an article from the American Journal of Public Health and it is about ways to improve child health in school lunches and is based on San Francisco. This will be a very helpful article to get more information and research about my topic.


Hathaway, Millicent, L. (1950, September). School Lunches: Their Nutritive Value and Relation to the Health and Diet for Children. American Journal of Public Health. 40.
This is another article that will be very useful because it is about school lunches which is what I am basing my topic on.


How can I be sure that the key vocabulary of the question corresponds not only to literature in the field, but also to chapter 1-3 (Aveyard 2014)?


I had a lot of difficulty in coming up with a specific enough research question and I am still going through some confusion and difficulties. I came up with my keywords of nutrition, school lunches, development, learning capabilities, and I am still trying to come up with more that will help me through this process. I know through this process, I will come up with more as I get more information and research done.


Based on what your question is, what kind of literature are you going to need? Again, please explicitly reference the text (Aveyard 2014). What is your hierarchy of evidence?


In the order of most important to least: (pg. 70, Aveyard)
  1. Observational studies
  2. Expert opinion
  3. Comparisons of nutritional value
  4. Comparisons of school districts


How exactly did you research question arise out of "practice"?
How do you define your key terms, and how do these definitions link to key journals in the field?
My question arose out of “practice” because the sources and articles I have currently are both peer-reviewed articles which helped me narrow down my research topic I chose.
Nutrition AND development
School lunches AND nutrition
Elementary school
Development
Affluent school district AND low income
Children AND nutrition
Nutritional value AND school lunches


Did anything unexpected happen? From you initial search, does it appear as though your research question will work? Or does the vocabulary and/or type of research sought need to be changed?
I have been unclear and have been working around my topic to make it clear in exactly what about nutritional values I want to research on. I think I have a pretty clear idea of what I want to do and that is compare the nutritional value and the way students do in school in a higher income district and lower income district. I might need to change the vocabulary a little bit and play around with different words.


Any final thoughts?

I drew out a mind map just like Aveyard gave us an example in the book of my topic and ideas that branch out from it to organize all my thoughts.

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Choosing a Topic

Nutrition and a healthy diet has always been a very important part of my lifestyle and is something that interests me. I have decided to do my research project based on nutrition, more particular, a child's nutrition and the effects on their development. My research question is, "What effects does a child's diet have on their development?" Recently, there are many studies and questions about how a poor diet can effect a child's development especially in their ability to learn in school. 

I first started off on the American Journal of Public Health homepage and searched "nutrition and early brain development" and a bunch of articles popped up. This was definitely a broad topic to search but for the beginning of the process, this is just where I needed to start off. 

One of the articles I have chosen to work with for the beginning of my research process is called, "Cognitive and health measures following early nutritional supplementation: a sibling study" which is a study that was done between two siblings and their health and development. This is just a screenshot of the beginning of the article. 

As I continued looking for articles and information about this topic, I came across this article which is about a nutritionist talking about school feeding. I found this through the Knowledge Center website along with a lot more. This really caught my attention because this is more of a specific issue dealing with food in schools and how this affects the children. I will continue to research more in depth about this topic of how a child's health effects their development in learning ability, physical activity, and their overall health benefits/risks. For this project, I am going to focus mostly about the child's health effecting their development in school and their learning ability.