ePortfolio

Writing Genre 3: Report on Research in Progress

 

My research revolves around how marketing plays a role in the eating habits and body image of nutrition and dietetics students.

 

So far, some of my sources include “Prevalence of eating disorders among dietetics students: does nutrition education make a difference?” published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.  I would consider this to be a pretty credible source.  It deals directly with dietetics and I don’t believe it is biased.  The article contains a lot of facts, figures, and numbers which is helpful when comparing dietetics students with non-national studies majors.  I don’t believe this source is biased because in most cases, people try to paint their own field in a more positive light.  This article serves more as a warning and is very factually based, creating more objectivity.  They seem more concerned about this topic because dietetics majors go on to educate others with food needs and want to ensure that students who are helping others, are being helped themselves.  This source, however, was published in 1992 and may not be extremely relevant today. It was a good starting point for my research, and I may use it as reference, but not as a main source of information in my research.

 

A debatable source would be “Eating patterns and weight concerns of college women” from the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.  The article talks about college women, is in about the correct range og my demographic, but doesn’t explicitly discuss anything to do with nutrition or dietetics students who are may main field of study.  While the information may be a little relevant in some cases, it doesn’t serve as a strong base of study.  I am still considering if I will use this source and what parts of it I will use.

 

A source I have excluded from my research is “Eating disorders, current nutrition therapy and perceived needs in dietetics education and research.” This also comes from the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. At first glance it seemed like it could contain relevant information, however upon exploring the article some more, I found that it focused more on the general public and their needs associated with nutrition, not student based information.  Since my research deals specifically with students pursuing dietetics and nutrition, this source was irrelevant in the respect that the demographic was inaccurate.  

 

My sources I have obtained thus far deal mostly with the nutritional and educational side of my research and less with the marketing aspects.  My next steps include locating sources that can help me tie the two areas together.  I am looking for the more business oriented side of research.

 

Many of my sources come from the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.  I initially looked through the Culinary Arts database for articles and journals which explains why many these sources are the same.  I should definitely branch out to eliminate a bias and to gain information from different views in order to support of reject my findings