English 2nd paper

A man named Cameron Eigner once said “While library research can tell you a great deal

about what we presently know about a topic, it is not always (and is often explicitly not)

indicative of the very innovative of understanding behavior, problems, or even solutions.

Problems evolve at an incredibly rapid pace – relying solely on the publication of academic

information will not always give you the clearest picture of attitudes or actions present in the

real world”. What a wise man he was. Throughout the survey that I sent out, the most common

gender to partake was female. 18 women and 8 men took the survey which comes out to be

69% female and 31% male participants. I also interviewed 2 women and 2 men.

73 percent of my participants were in the age range of 19 years old or younger, 4

percent were in the age range of 20-30 years old, 19 percent were in the age range of 41-50

years old, and 4 percent were in the age range of 51-60 years old. None of the people who took

the survey were in the age ranges of 31-40 or 61+ years old. I then asked people what their

heights were. This was to see if there was a correlation in people’s responses based on their

age, height, and gender.

4 percent of the participants said that they normally eat 1 meal a day, 31 percent of the

participants said they eat 2 meals a day, and 65 percent of people said that they eat 3 meals a

day. In another question, 85 percent of people taking the survey said that they would rather

have a home cooked meal than eat fast food. However, 15 percent of people who took the

survey said they would rather have fast food than a home cooked meal.
 When asked why they preferred fast food to a home cooked meal, 10 percent of people

said this was because it tastes good. Another 10 percent said it was because it’s convenient. 15

percent of people said because it’s cheap. 21 percent of participants said because its

quick/easy. Finally, 44 percent of people said that they didn’t prefer fast food to a home cooked

meal.

0 percent of people said that they don’t drink water at all during the day. 4 percent of

people said that they have 1 bottle a day. 19 percent of people said they have 4 bottles of

water a day. 23 percent said they had 2 bottles a day/ 31 percent said they had 3 bottles a day.

Finally, 23 percent said they had 5+ bottles a day.

When asked how often they eat vegetables, 4 percent said once a week. Another 19

percent said that they ate vegetables 4-6 times a week. 35 percent of the participants said 2-3

times a week. Surprisingly 38 percent of people, which is the majority of the participants, said

they eat vegetables daily. Now you may ask, “where is the other 4 percent?” well the last 4

percent said answered with “I don’t touch green things”.

No one strongly agreed with the statement that they “only eat healthy things”. 4

percent said that they strongly disagree. 62 percent of the participants disagreed and 35

percent said that they agree with this statement.

69 percent of my participants agreed with the statement, “I try to watch my weight”. 23

percent of people said they strongly agreed with that statement. 8 percent disagreed with the

statement and no one strongly disagreed.

 64 percent of the participants in my survey disagreed with the statement, “I will almost

always substitute junk food for a healthy alternative”. 0 percent of participants said that they

“strongly agreed”. 32 percent of people agreed with this statement and 4 percent said they

“strongly disagreed”. I decided to add in a true or false question. I stated “I work out regularly”.

54 percent of my participants answered “true”. The other 46 percent answered “false”.

I decided to ask people how many times a week they work out. 8 percent of people

worked out 0 times a week. However, 24 percent stated that they work out 5-6 times a week.

32 percent of people work out 1-2 times per week and 36 percent of people work out 3-4 times

per week. When asked is people would consider themselves active, 38 percent said “definitely

yes”, 31 percent said “probably yes”, and the last 31 percent said “probably not”.

When given the statement, “I would be more active if I had more time”, 28 percent of

people said “this describes me extremely well”. 27 percent said “this describes me very well”,

23 percent said it “describes me moderately well”. The last two percentages said that this

“describes me slightly well” with a total of 14 percent and that this “does not describe me” qith

a total of 7 percent.

Finally, when given the statement “I would be happier if I was skinnier” 26 percent of

people disagreed. Leaving 37 percent of people to agree and the last 33 percent of people to

strongly agree. This means that even though people don’t always eat like they should or

workout as much as they should, that they still want to be healthier. So why don’t people do

what they should to stay healthy?

 I interviewed two males and two females for my research. For all four of my interviews

everyone seemed to understand the concept of being healthy. However, not everyone cared

enough to take the appropriate steps towards living a healthy lifestyle. One of the people that I

interviewed was a raw vegan for 3 years. This means that they only ate plant based proteins,

and they indicated that this was a successful way to stay healthy. This participant also stated

that they cut specific things out of their diets because they wanted to stay healthier. They cut

out gluten, breads, and pastas and this helped them to fall asleep quicker and not have so many

headaches.

Another participant stated that they had never tried a diet because they didn’t care

enough. They did cut out soda, but they really didn’t feel that a diet was necessary for them to

stay healthy. This person also felt that they could eat whatever they wanted whenever they

wanted. This participant clearly had no reason or desire to be on a diet. However, this

participant spent multiple hours a week playing a sport and using the gym. This shows that not

everyone needs to diet to stay healthy. There are multiple options to stay healthy yet people

refuse to put in the effort to stay healthy! Why is that? Overall most of my participants chose

one way or another to stay healthy. But according to my survey, this is not how the majority of

people are.

When given the choice between an apple and a bag of chips, 75 percent of the time

people will choose the bag of chips. I conducted this experiment with the four interviews I did. I

set out a bag of chips and an apple, and told the participants to pick one as a snack. 3 of the 4

participants chose the bag of chips. This just further shows that most people choose not to take

the healthy route when given an option between junk food and a healthier alternative.