How to measure health

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ScFhos
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2008 5:06 pm
Occupation: Student
Project Question: How much Nutrition and Exercise Do you need daily to be Healthy? Would maintaining that same amount of nutrition and excercise affect you health?
Project Due Date: February, 15 2008
Project Status: I am conducting my research

How to measure health

Post by ScFhos »

I am trying to find out the exact amount of nutrition and exercise one would need daily, to be healthy. From researching, I got that health is something both mental and physical, not only being free from diseases and injuries but also having a positive mind? So how would I put healthiness into measurements.
Possibilities: BMI
taylorjones4
Former Expert
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2007 9:34 pm
Occupation: student
Project Question: n/a
Project Due Date: n/a
Project Status: Not applicable

Re: How to measure health

Post by taylorjones4 »

Dear ScFhos,
Sounds like an interesting project - it would, however, be difficult to put healthiness into an exact measurement. Maybe if you could narrow down your problem/question more. However, I would think that this type of measurement would be on a case-by-case basis with each individual person. There are several items to address - height, weight, sex, age (possibly calorie intake). You can go to many websites regarding health/fitness which would address the standard. Even your family physician could be of some help. I'm certain even some of the health magazines could offer some valuable information. Good luck on your project!
Grace
Former Expert
Posts: 19
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2007 8:37 pm

Re: How to measure health

Post by Grace »

I agree with the above post, that your topic is quite broad and should be narrowed down.

One warning about BMI: It is not accurate for people with greater-than-average muscle mass because muscle is denser than fat. Also, though there are differing opinions on this, certain groups find that a slightly-overweight individual who exercises regularly may actually be in much better health than a normal-weight individual who does not exercise much. The point is that BMI can be helpful in some cases, but it definitely has its limits.

Here are some links for you to browse as you do some background research and formulate your ideas:

http://www.healthierus.gov/
http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/nal_display/in ... _default=0

Let us know if you have different or more specific questions after your initial research into this topic!

Grace Lin
SGelman
Former Expert
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2007 3:51 pm

Re: How to measure health

Post by SGelman »

Hi,
This is an interesting topic, but like others have said it is also quite broad. One thing that you might want to consider is that our weight is moderated by our metabolism, and some naturally have a higher metabolism than others, which would make them thinner than those with a slower metabolism.

If you are looking to put health into measurements, you could calculate how many calories you burn each day, based on your exercise/eating patterns, and then how many calories you should be intaking each day. These are two sites that might help you get an idea of how to "measure" health and what you could narrow your topic down to.

http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner ... burned.htm
http://www.caloriesperhour.com/tutorial_BMR.php

Good luck!
Susan
ScFhos
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2008 5:06 pm
Occupation: Student
Project Question: How much Nutrition and Exercise Do you need daily to be Healthy? Would maintaining that same amount of nutrition and excercise affect you health?
Project Due Date: February, 15 2008
Project Status: I am conducting my research

Re: How to measure health

Post by ScFhos »

Thank you for all of your help, and I think I should narrow the idea down to the correct calorie intake per day. However there are still things I'm confused about. Is the amount of calories needed plainly the BMR + MET + TEF?
I'm also quite new to the Scientific method and would appreaciate it alot if somone could provide a possible next step.
Thank you
Grace
Former Expert
Posts: 19
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2007 8:37 pm

Re: How to measure health

Post by Grace »

Yes, you are correct. According to that site (http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner ... burned.htm), your body's daily expenditure in calories would be BMR + MET + TEF.

The scientific method is described here: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... thod.shtml

It seems like you have already identified a general topic of interest (calorie intake per day) as a first step, and you have also done research. However, to get the actual project going, you still need to define the question you are asking. You should figure out what your exact question is - be specific. Here are some general questions to ask yourself to get your juices flowing and help you formulate a question:

What are you going to do with calorie intake per day?
- Use it to measure something (health?)
- Use it to predict something
- Find a correlation between it and something else
- Do something else with it

Once you come up with a specific question for your project, you can do more research, then create a hypothesis (an educated guess, based on your research, that states what the answer to your question may be). Refer back to the scientific method link for the next steps!

Hope this helps,
Grace
ScFhos
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2008 5:06 pm
Occupation: Student
Project Question: How much Nutrition and Exercise Do you need daily to be Healthy? Would maintaining that same amount of nutrition and excercise affect you health?
Project Due Date: February, 15 2008
Project Status: I am conducting my research

Re: How to measure health

Post by ScFhos »

Thanks again, I've decided that i want to kind of stick with my original idea(not really) but to measure health. However, i still have some questions. Does that mean you only need to comsume the number of calories you burn ? And isn't calories really not enough to be called measuring health? I'm kind of confused over how much i would need to test for it to be a complete project. thank you for your time and i barely have 2 weeks left so i'll be happy to take any advice about really what i should be doing, cause i'm sort of in a dilemma.

Another thing about the calorie intake per day, is the MET the amount of calories you burn in a day? Therefore your total calorie intake/ day= your bmr + Met( e.g. 100 kcal?) + Tef( how much calories you eat x 0.10?) Thanks again
ScFhos
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2008 5:06 pm
Occupation: Student
Project Question: How much Nutrition and Exercise Do you need daily to be Healthy? Would maintaining that same amount of nutrition and excercise affect you health?
Project Due Date: February, 15 2008
Project Status: I am conducting my research

Re: How to measure health

Post by ScFhos »

From a nutritionist, She said that the formula for calculating the amount of calories you need per day doens't exist. Every single person out there needs a different amount of nutrition.
So i was thinking of shifting my entire idea from using that formula to try and measure health to comparing that forumla's results with what really is happening. To show that there really isn't a actual amount of nutrition, of exercise, of sleep that a person needs.
Would that make a plausible project????
ChrisG
Former Expert
Posts: 1019
Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:43 am
Occupation: Research Hydrologist
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Re: How to measure health

Post by ChrisG »

Hi ScFhos,
It's good to see you have found a topic that interests you. Your newest idea for a project is still pretty broad. There's nothing wrong with broad research topics, but they are more suitable for groups of scientists working for many years as opposed to one scientist working for a few months. You'd be pulling out your hair before too long. I suggest narrowing the topic down to something more specific, and then we can really help you with the details of how to do it.
Looking forward to hearing more about your project,
Chris
ScFhos
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2008 5:06 pm
Occupation: Student
Project Question: How much Nutrition and Exercise Do you need daily to be Healthy? Would maintaining that same amount of nutrition and excercise affect you health?
Project Due Date: February, 15 2008
Project Status: I am conducting my research

Re: How to measure health

Post by ScFhos »

What I'm thinking of is what the Food Guide or the calorie formula says is the amount of calorie intake for the age and gender you are, and testing if that's really how much you need. I would appreaciate any ideas on how i could narrow it down. Thanks for the help
Also i currently have one week left, so i really need to rush it, so i would only be able to do easier experiments.
Louise
Former Expert
Posts: 921
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2006 2:17 pm

Re: How to measure health

Post by Louise »

ScFhos wrote:What I'm thinking of is what the Food Guide or the calorie formula says is the amount of calorie intake for the age and gender you are, and testing if that's really how much you need. I would appreaciate any ideas on how i could narrow it down. Thanks for the help
Also i currently have one week left, so i really need to rush it, so i would only be able to do easier experiments.
I don't think you can do this experiment. You would need to feed people a very fixed amount of food and see if they gained or lost weight. This would be difficult to measure in one week and get reliable results. For example, my weight fluctuates by several pounds over the course of the week. Usually, this fluctuate has nothing to do with the calories I eat, but rather how much salt or water I consumed the day before. To tell if my weight were changing, you would need to study me for several weeks or months and look at trend (rolling average or some other method to smooth out fluctuations. People who do this type of study generally use hundreds or thousands of people and study them for several months or years.

I suggest you look at the sciencebuddy project ideas and pick something from there. Many of the projects there can be completed in one week. It may not be exactly on this topic, but hopefully you can find something you like.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... deas.shtml

Good luck!
Louise
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