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Project Summary

Difficulty	5  –  6
Time required	Very Long (several weeks to months)
Prerequisites	This science fair project requires you to either have basic knowledge of good nutrition or be willing to spend some time learning about good nutrition. You will also need to collect parental permission from all people participating in this science fair project before beginning.
Material Availability	Readily available
Cost	Very Low (under $20)
Safety	Adult supervision is required.

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Objective

Determine if healthy eating has an effect on physical fitness.

Introduction

How does Michael Phelps swim so fast? How does David Beckham bend those kicks? How do Venus and Serena Williams keep winning tennis tournaments? Training and determination are big parts of their success, but eating right also plays an important part in their performances.

It is very important to have a balance of foods from the five different food groups every day. What are the five food groups? They are: grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy (like milk or yogurt), and proteins (found in meats, beans, and nuts). It is even more important to know how much of each food type you should eat, especially when you're going to spend a lot of energy playing sports. For example, eating 2 cups or more of vegetables every day is healthy, but it's important to avoid eating lots of fats or sugar. So smothering your vegetables in a fatty cream sauce might not be a good idea! For more information about what makes a balanced diet, take a look at this healthy eating poster from MyPyramid.gov and the references in the Bibliography.

Figure 1. Each colored stripe in this food pyramid represents one of the five food groups. The width of a stripe indicates how much you should eat of a particular food group, relative to the other groups. The food pyramid was created by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and is based on the government's 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. (Modified from MyPyramid.gov, 2005.)

Good nutrition isn't just about what foods you eat, it's also about when and how you eat them. We're all told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. This is especially true for young athletes. Eating the right foods, first thing in the morning, will give you energy for sports; school; and a fun, full, and busy day. Lunch helps re-energize you for the afternoon, and dinner helps your muscles recover from all of your activities. Healthy snacks in between breakfast and lunch, as well as between lunch and dinner, will keep your energy level high to help you succeed.

In this science fair project, you'll explore the connection between eating healthy foods and improving sports performance. You and a group of friends will form two test groups. Both groups will measure their physical fitness at the beginning of the experiment. Then the first group will try to eat as healthily as possible and follow the food pyramid recommendations, while the second group will continue to eat their normal diet. After four weeks, both groups will measure their physical fitness again. Do you think eating healthily will change the physical fitness levels of the people in the first group? What will happen to group number two's fitness levels? Get ready to find out if picking the right foods and the right amounts of each food can help you become a better athlete. Maybe one day we'll see you with an Olympic gold medal around your neck!

Terms, Concepts and Questions to Start Background Research

• Food group
• Dairy
• Proteins
• Fats (including monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, saturated, and trans fats)
• Nutrition
• Quantify
• Cholesterol
• Sodium
• Trend
• Portion size
• Calories
• Recommended daily allowances (RDA)
• Carbohydrates
• Oil
• Hydration

Questions

• How much of each food group should someone your age eat? How many calories does your body need?
• Make a sample daily menu that meets good nutrition standards.
• What kinds of foods do you see people eating that are unhealthy? Name some tasty, but healthy, alternatives.
• How can you use nutrition labels on foods to find out if a food has lots of fat or sugar in it?
• What are the differences between "good fats" (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats) and "bad fats" (saturated and trans fats)?

Bibliography

These websites contain more information about what qualifies as good nutrition:

• United States Department of Agriculture. (2008, October 8). MyPyramid for Kids. Retrieved November 14, 2008, from http://www.mypyramid.gov/kids/
• American Dietetic Association. (2008). 25 Healthy Snacks for Kids. Retrieved November 14, 2008, from http://www.eatright.org/ada/files/Snacks_for_Kids_English.pdf
• Kennedy, S. (2008, September). You Are What You Eat: A Guide to Living Right, Eating Right and Playing the Right Way. USA Hockey Magazine, Issue 09-08, retrieved November 14, 2008, from http://www.usahockeymagazine.com/story.php?left_nav=0809&article=eating-right-hockey-0809&right_nav=normal
• KidsHealth.org. (n.d.). Nutrition & Fitness Center. Retrieved November 14, 2008, from http://kidshealth.org/kid/stay_healthy/food/nutrition_center.html

To do this science fair project you'll need to track what you eat, using this website:

• United States Department of Agriculture. (n.d.). MyPyramid Tracker. Retrieved November 14, 2008, from http://www.mypyramidtracker.gov/Default.htm

For help creating graphs, try this website:

• National Center for Education Statistics. (n.d.). Create a Graph. Retrieved October 24, 2008, from http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/CreateAGraph/default.aspx

Materials and Equipment

• Volunteers (at least 6, including yourself). All the volunteers should be about your age.
• Consent forms, one for each volunteer. See the Experimental Procedure, below, for more details.
• Any necessary equipment for the five activities you choose. See the Experimental Procedure, below, for more details.
• Stopwatch
• Computer with Internet access. Each volunteer needs to be able to use the Internet on a daily basis.
• Scale
• Tape measure
• Graph paper
• Lab notebook

Experimental Procedure

Gathering the Data

1. To start this science fair project, you'll need to find a group of volunteers, and their parents, who are willing to take part in the experiments.
   1. You'll need at least 6 people, including yourself, but more is better. An even number of volunteers works best. The volunteers' parents should not be included in this number.
   2. All the volunteers should be about your age.
2. Divide the volunteers into two even groups. Group 1 will be trying to eat healthily and will follow the recommendations in this healthy eating poster from MyPyramid.gov. Group 2 will continue to eat their normal diet.
3. Make sure each volunteer has permission from his or her parents to take part in the science fair project. With the help of a teacher or other adult, create a permission slip (also called a consent form). The permission slip should briefly describe this science fair project and should be signed by the parent(s) of each volunteer participating in the project.
   1. Consent forms are always required for projects where human subjects take part in an experiment.
   2. Because you'll be gathering personal data from other people (their daily food intake and sports scores), your local science fair may want you to get pre-approval from the fair before starting your project. Consult this guide on Projects Involving Human Subjects for more details, or contact the people in charge of the science fair you are entering.
4. Pick five physical activities that you can use to measure the athletic progress of each volunteer. You can pick any physical activity that can be timed or quantified in some way. Some possible activities include:
   1. Number of sit-ups done in 1 minute
   2. Number of jumping jacks done in 1 minute
   3. Number of push-ups done in 1 minute
   4. Time it takes to run the 50-yard dash
   5. Time it takes to run the 100-yard dash
   6. Time it takes to run a half mile
5. On the first day of your experiment, measure the physical fitness level of each volunteer on all five of the physical activities. Be sure to give them a break between each activity. Record their results in a data table, like Table 1 below, in your lab notebook.

   Volunteer	Group (#1 or #2)	# of Sit-ups Done in 1 Minute		# of Jumping Jacks Done in 1 Minute		# of Push-ups Done in 1 Minute		Time It Takes to Run 50-yard Dash		Time It Takes to Run a Half Mile
   		First Day	Last Day	First Day	Last Day	First Day	Last Day	First Day	Last Day	First Day	Last Day
   1
   2

   Table 1. This is an example of what the physical fitness data table should look like. You can use any five quantifiable physical activities you choose. Make sure to fill in each volunteer's data on both the first and last day of the experiment.

6. Every day for the next four weeks, have each volunteer (in both groups) keep track of how healthily they are eating by entering the food they ate online at the MyPyramid Tracker website.
   1. To create a personal food log, each volunteer will need to register with the website.
      • During registration, each volunteer will need to enter his or her approximate weight and height. Use the scale and tape measure to determine these measurements.
   2. Once registered, each volunteer should use the "Food Intake Entry" menu option to keep track of the foods he or she has eaten that day.
   3. After entering all the foods eaten on a particular day, each volunteer should click on the "Analyze Your Food Intake" menu option and then choose "Meeting Dietary Guidelines."
      • This function in MyPyramid Tracker will show each volunteer how healthy his or her diet was that day. It'll display a smiley face, neutral face (neither happy nor sad), or sad face for each food group. Smiley faces appear when the person ate well in that food group and sad faces appear when he or she either ate too much or too little of the food group.
      • Each volunteer should fill out a data table, like Table 2 below, for every day of the experiment, showing how healthy his or her diet was. In order to convert the emoticons (smiley, neutral, or sad faces) to a number-scoring system, the volunteers should give themselves two points for every smiley face, one point for every neutral face, and zero points for every sad face. In the end, they should add up all the points to calculate their "daily dietary score." The higher the daily dietary score, the healthier they ate that day.
      • Note: You may want to provide each of your volunteers with a pre-made data table for them to fill out.

   Volunteer's Name: __________________     Volunteer's Group (#1 or #2): ________
   Dietary Guideline Recommendations for:	Daily Score (smiley face = 2, neutral face = 1, sad face = 0)
   	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5	Day 6
   Grains
   Vegetables
   Fruits
   Dairy (Milk)
   Protein (Meats & Beans)
   Total Fat
   Saturated Fat
   Cholesterol
   Sodium
   Daily Dietary Score (add together all points above):

   Table 2. Each volunteer should fill in a diet data table, like this one, for every day of the experiment.

7. Volunteers in Group 1 should try to maximize their daily dietary score by eating as healthily as possible. Volunteers in Group 2 can continue to eat their normal diet. Both groups should track their daily diet every day, as described in step 6, for 4 weeks.
8. At the end of week four, re-test the physical fitness level of each of your volunteers. Have them try the same physical activities, as in step 5. Record their new scores in a data table, like Table 1 above, in your lab notebook.

Analyzing the Data

There are many different ways to graph and analyze your data from this science fair project. You should think about the questions you want to answer and which types of graphs might help you discover those answers. Below are a couple of data-analysis options to get you started.

1. Using the graph paper, make a line graph, one for each volunteer, showing his or her daily dietary score over the course of the whole experiment.
   1. If you need help graphing, or would like to use the computer to make your graphs the Create a Graph website may be helpful.
   2. Look at your graphs. What happened to the daily dietary scores for each volunteer over the course of the experiment? Did they increase, decrease, or stay the same? Was the trend the same or different for volunteers in Group 1 versus Group 2?
2. Make bar graphs showing the volunteers' scores on each physical activity.
   1. Make one graph for each physical activity. You should have a total of five bar graphs.
   2. Graph each volunteer's first and last day scores next to one another.
   3. Make the bars representing data from Group 1 volunteers one color, and the bars representing data from Group 2 volunteers another color.
   4. Look at your graphs. What happened to the physical fitness level of each volunteer? Did it increase, decrease, or stay the same? Was the trend the same or different for volunteers in Group 1 versus Group 2?
3. Based on all your data and graphs, what can you conclude about the effects of healthy eating on athletic performance?

Variations

• Does diet affect academic progress? Modify the Experimental Procedure above to determine if a healthy diet helps improve test scores or grades.
• Rather than tracking the effect of diet on athletic performance, track the effect of music on athletic ability. Have one group listen to fast, upbeat music, while the second group listens to slow music or no music at all when they exercise. Make sure each group exercises daily and track their physical fitness on a weekly basis.
• See if diet changes how you sleep. Do you sleep better with a healthy diet? Do you think your sleep would be better if you added exercise? Design an experiment to find out! Hint: You'll need to figure out a way of quantifying how well a person slept. One way would be to design a sleep survey for people to fill out. For more information about surveys, try the Designing a Survey guide.

• For more science project ideas in this area of science, see Human Biology & Health Project Ideas.

Credits

Created by the following Schering-Plough employees: Jamie Furneisen, Maria-Christina Malinao, and Sheela Mohan-Peterson

Edited by Sandra Slutz, PhD, Science Buddies

Last edit date: 2008-11-17 20:00:00

Career Focus

If you like this project, you might want to think about career opportunities in Human Biology & Health.

Doctor's need information to decide if a person is healthy or sick, if a baby's earache is bacterial or viral, or if the man next door needs medication to lower his cholesterol and prevent a heart attack. The information often comes in the form of results from lab tests. Medical and clinical laboratory technicians are the people who perform these routine medical laboratory tests, giving the doctors the information needed to diagnose, treat, and prevent disease. Learn more about this career: Medical & Clinical Laboratory Technician.