Mini-Anaylsis - Calories & Weight Loss - Lisa Waters

Recently several of my friends have been complaining about not being able to lose weight. Several of them have been complaining to me that they are going to the gym everyday and they are just not seeing results. I asked them what a typical day looked like and after hearing the eating habits of my friends I became inspired for this assignment.

I came up with a 9 question survey:
1. What is a calorie?
2. How do calories work?
3. Do you know approximately how many calories you need each day?
4. Do you know how many calories you consume each day?
5. For one day write down everything you eat and the number of calories each item has. Add the total and write it here ________
6. How do answers 4 and 5 compare?
7. What do you know about serving sizes?
8. Do you eat one serving of each food that you consume each day?
9. What are your thoughts about the results? Were you surprised by your findings?

I sent this survey to 12 people - 8 woman and 4 men, ranging in ages from 26 through 62. Most people were not able to explain exactly what a calorie was, 3 answered closely by explaining that it was a unit of measure. All 12 responded to question 2 by saying that calories fuel the body. 11 people said they needed 2000 calories a day, one said 2500. For questions 4 through 6 10 of the surveyed responses indicated that more on average each person consumed close to 1500 – 2000 more calories than needed in one day, and 2 consumed about the same amount that needed to consume. Question 7 and 8 indicated that unless things were prepackaged in single serving sizes most people consumed 2 to 3 servings and if they were left to serve themselves they had no idea how much they should put on their plate or in their bowl.

After reviewing the results I have discovered the need to define what a calorie is and what it does, and that people should spend some time counting their calories to raise awareness on how much they are consuming each day. In addition providing education of single serving sizes will raise awareness. The findings warrant a short online self passed course that will focus on the number of calories necessary to maintain, gain, or lose weight, and also educate the participants of the calories in various foods, and raise single serving size awareness.

The audience for this training could be anyone interested in learning more about calories and also people interested in understanding how what they eat can impact their weight.