Fitness and nutrition are more important for young people today than they’ve ever been before. Leading far more sedentary lifestyles, and eating more junk and convenience foods than their counterparts a decade ago, many of today’s children, teens, and young adults need to focus more on their health and nutrition.
The facts about obesity and young people are alarming. According to the Community for Accredited Online Schools, between 1971 and 2011, the amount of young people with obesity has more than tripled. With more young people suffering from high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and other health complications, obesity can be traced as the root cause of many of these health concerns.
What You Can Do
As the person in charge of nutrition within a school, college, or university environment, assessing the nutritional habits of your students through a nutrition survey can help you understand their current tastes and nutritional routines.
Through collating this information, you can identify area that need improvement, as well as understand students’ likes and dislikes. This can help you to tailor healthy menus taking the survey information into account.
Young people can often be very picky when it comes to identifying foods they like, which is another reason a food survey can be invaluable. Some questions to ask may include:
Do you make a habit of eating breakfast? If not, then why not?
Did you eat breakfast this morning? If so, where did you eat it?
What did you have for breakfast?
What’s your favorite food?
What’s your favorite healthy food?
Do you eat lunch in school? If not, why not?
What items do you like on the menu?
What items would you like to see on the menu?
These are just a few of the questions you may wish to ask via a nutrition survey. Of course, you can tailor the questionnaire to your own specific information needs, whether you’re targeted high school or university students.
Methods of Delivery of Nutritional Habits Surveys
There are various ways you can collate survey information from your students. You could go down the traditional paper route, however, this can become a mountain of unneeded work. You can also use the phone to talk to students. Again, though this is a time-consuming process. Perhaps the best method of survey delivery is via the internet, as online survey software streamlines the entire process.
Through the delivery of a survey tool via email, or a link, students can complete a nutritional survey in the way that’s most easy, and convenient for them. In addition, you get your information digitally, there is no endless paper trail, and young people are more likely to respond to computer surveys than antiquated paper ones.
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