Do our students eat well?

What types of foods do you eat?

How often should you eat during the day?

We made our students answer these two basic questions to let us know if their eating
habits are correct.

To this end, our students wrote down everything they ate for a week: type of food, grams,
calories and how often they ate daily. This study was carried out with a sample of 52 students aged
between 15 and 16. We understand the difficulty of this job. It is not easy to calculate exactly how
many grams of each type of food are eaten for each meal, so these calculations were figured out by
our students, getting perhaps a considerable margin of error, bigger than expected.

In any case, we accomplished the main aim of this study, which was raising awareness
among our students; for instance, they learnt that it is more convenient to eat five times a day in
small quantities rather than doing it just twice in bigger amounts. They also know now how
important it is to follow a balanced diet in terms of nutrients, i.e., 60% carbohydrate, 25% fat and
15% protein.

What are our students like?

Boys Girls
58 kg. Weight 50 kg.
171 cm. Height 160 cm.
15. Age 15.
66 + (13.75 x P) + (5 x A) – Basal 655 + (9.5 x P) + (1.8 + A)
(6.75 x E). Metabo – (4.6 x E).
1617 kcal. lism 1220 kcal.

Basal Metabolism is the necessary energy for living without making any effort or task. But,
if we walk, run, think, play the guitar, eat… we will need more energy. So, Basal Metabolism isn´t
enough information to know how much energy our body needs.

Example of a female student who accomplishes these activities along the day

Activity Hour X Kcal/min/ X Weigt X MB/2 = Total

kg 4
Sitting in the 5 X 0.029 X 50 X 50,83 = 368,51
classroom 75
Studying 3 X 0.029 X 50 X 50,83 = 221,11
Eating meals 2 X 0.023 X 50 X 50,83 = 116,90
9
Playing Volleyball 1 X 0.050 X 50 X 50,83 = 127,07
5
Standing up 2 X 0.026 X 50 X 50,83 = 132,15
8
Walking 1 X 0.080 X 50 X 50,83 = 203,32
Household chores 1 X 0.060 X 50 X 50,83 = 152,49
 Playing the Piano 1 X 0.040 X 50 X 50,83 = 101,66
Sleeping 8 X 0.016 X 50 X 50,83 = 325,31
2
24 1748,5
52

Chart number 1

She has consumed 1750 Kcal, but as we can see on the chart below the average amount of calories
taken by our female students is 2320 kcal. That means that the girl taken as an example ingests
more calories than she consumes. She should eat less or take more sport to burn some more
calories.

Men MEN
FOOD KC %
al
Breakfast 19%
Breakfast 46 19
Lunch 30%
0
Dinner 31%
Other Moments 18%
Lunch 73 30
1
Dinner 75 31
0
Other 44 18
Moments 0
TOTAL 24 10
Women 00 0

WOMEN
Breakfast 31 % FOOD KC %
Lunch 33% al
Dinner 22 % Breakfast 71 31
Other Moments 15 % 3
Lunch 77 33
4
Dinner 50 22
0
Other 34 15
Moments 5
TOTAL 23 10
20 0

Ideal %

Breakfast 25%
Lunch 35%
Final Conclusions:
Dinner 25%
Other Moments 15%
1. Our pupils ingest an amount of calories which is higher than the calories they consume. The
problem has nothing to do with the amount of food they take, but with the little exercise they take
( See chart number 1).
2. The way they distribute the amount of food along the day is not completely right, but it adjusts to
the standard.
3. The percentage of nutrients taken is right, because more than half of the calories ingested come
from Carbohydrates; a fourth comes from Fat and a bit less than the fourth part from Protein.

DISTRIBUTION ALONG THE DAY DISTRIBUTIONS OF

NUTRIENTS
MEALS IDEAL BOYS GIRLS Carbohydrates 60 %
Breakfast 25 % 19 % 31 % Lipids or Fat 25 %
Lunch 35 % 30 % 33 % Protein 15 %
Dinner 25 % 31 % 22 %
Other 15 % 18 % 15 %
Meals or
snacks