Men vs Women: Eating Habits

Kevin Walker Professor Echelberger ENG 201 2 March 2010 ingest Habits workforce versus Wo custody Getting a hot meal in college is real simple. intimeatly college students construct a very short walk to their campus cafeteria. Entering the cafeteria, on that point is generally an array of meals to deal from. Researchers bewilder been studying the ingest habits of college students for a while. Although the studies atomic number 18 predominately due to the typical increase in weight of Americans over the past few centuries, the data has shown interesting results not pertaining to their research.A fascinating interrogative sentence has arisen to add to the ponderous question of how men and women differ. The question that I was sounding to gain knowledge on was how do men and women vary in food choices? Central Michigan Universitys cafeteria Rfoc (Real Food on Campus) was the perfective aspect observatory for my research. The universitys campus hosts sixteen different loc ations to get meals from. The assortment of cafeterias allows for redoubted convenience to the students who need to fit several meals into a jam jam-packed day. Do these busy days force students to eat quick rheumatoid snacks instead of a nutritious meal?M any(prenominal) researchers think the taste from train and a busy schedule force students to put food on the back burner. Others have seen a trend in eating healthy or unhealthy between men and women. Considering all I have to do is walk down four flights of stairs to the Rfoc, I chose to observe at this location. Walking into the cafeteria there were many vantage points to choose from. The main floor seating would be good since it would put me in the middle of the most eaters. Then I started thinking ab aside how Id be looked at funny for staring at tribe since I might lock eyes with someone.Next vantage point I looked at was the tables by the Mediterranean pasta property. Only problem with seance there was that I would see mostly bulk eating the Mediterranean food which would skew my observations. Finally I found the perfect observation post point. The bar by the on the left side of the cafeteria seemed ideal since the spunky bar stools would give me a birds eye horizon of the peoples plates without being looked at funny for creeping. From my post I could see the salad bar, Mediterranean pasta station, international station, Mediterranean pizza station, American dinner station and the produce stand.The only stations I couldnt see were American dinner, southern kitchen and the dessert station. Since I could see majority of the stations and tables I decided Id stay in this location to observe. With the discover location picked out all I needed was to figure out what was the best date to observe. From my own personal experience throughout the school year I know when the most people tend to be down there. Breakfast usually gets a decent amount of people from around nine thirty till ten thirty wh en eat ends. However, since breakfast doesnt have a large variety of choices there wouldnt be much to compare.With breakfast no longer in the running, lunch and dinner were the only two possible times to go. sentiment back to the mind-boggling lines I have had to wait in at dinner time I decided dinner was the best time to observe. Dinner would have a wide range of food offered and much(prenominal) people to observe allowing for better data. When I walked into the cafeteria, the cute girl on the job(p) the reception desk swiped my card to subtract one meal from my plan. Like any other typical time eating in the Rfoc I walked up to the display table showing all the possible meals for the day.Each meal consists of a main dish and possible sides. Southern kitchen offered a marinated pork loin with mashed potatoes and carrots. American dinner was a hamburger offered with toppings like bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese in addition to fries. Mediterranean pizza had an array of c heese, pepperoni, and ham pizzas. International served an orangeness chicken with rice and vegetables dish. Fettuccini alfredo and marinara sauces were the possible toppings for the linguini noodles at the Mediterranean pasta station. afterss consisted of fudge brownies, chocolate chip cookies and ice balm.The ice work out machine had chocolate and vanilla with toppings like reeses, chocolate chips, fudge, chocolate syrup, marshmallow cream and heath bars. Salad bar had the typical salad bar contents to choose from to work on a personal salad with. Some of the available meals were healthy and some were very unhealthy. I quickly grabbed my plate of the chicken from the salad bar since on a diet and make my way to my post. Previous to going to the cafeteria I made a very detailed excel spreadsheet to sort my observations into.I am a neat freak so I wanted it to be easy to do and presentable. Although my bladder didnt want to I stayed in the cafeteria for a little over an hour rec ording what the visible guys and girls were eating. I preserve which meals the guys picked and which meals the girls went with. In addition, I took note of whether or not guys and girls grabbed fruit since unlike vegetables they are not included in the meals. Since drinks dont have nutritional value I didnt record what each sex drank. Once I had all of my data I went back to my mansion house and graphed the numbers into a bar graph.The graph showed men out ate women at Southern Kitchen, Mediterranean Pizza, American Dinner, International Station and the Dessert Station. Thus, women out ate men at the Salad Bar, Mediterranean Pasta, and Fruit. Based on the foods served at these stations, men tended to eat more meat, poultry, and grains than women. Vegetables and fruit were consumed by more women than men as predicted by Tinas study in The capital of Indiana Star. Grains were split between the two genders since women consumed more pasta then men and men consumed more pizza than wo men.My data agrees with Judith Rodriguez when she said, Male college students are more likely to eat from the meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, and nut groups. Throughout my observations, I see a trend in the eating habits of men and women. Nanci Hellmich was correct when saying, Eating habits of men and women in college are different. The reasoning for the difference could be anything from males hoping the protein in the meats would help build bigger muscles to women eating vegetables and fruit because they are obsessed with maintaining their figure (LeFebvre).However, my data does not supply sufficient nurture to justify the reasoning behind the genders tendencies of eating certain foods. Men and women have many similarities and differences, but when pertaining to eating habits they are very different. Works Cited Hellmich, Nanci. College eating habits are clogged with fat. USA Today. 10 Jan. 2002. Web. 11 Feb. 2010. . LeFebvre, Cathy. College eating habits examine by researcher s, students. The Daily Orange. 23 Sept. 2002. Web. 11 Feb. 2010. . Rodriguez, Judith C. College Students. Faqs. org. Web. . Tina. Study Women Eat fitter Than Men. The Indianapolis Star. 8 Apr. 2007. Web. 11 Feb. 2010. .