How fit is Tech? How overweight is Tech? Between the dates of March 28 and 30, the Tech Scribe conducted a survey to determine the answers to these critical questions. We found that the majority of the school is of normal weight, which was quite surprising to us because of the incredibly high amount of fast food restaurants located around our school.



The number of surveys conducted totaled 211 while our school student body is 1765 students. This would only make up 12 percent of all the students. Surveys were given to two classes in each grade level. We also surveyed gender, age, and ethnicity. The questions ranged from “How many fast food meals do you eat in one week?” to “How often do you exercise per week?” The purpose of the surveys was to determine the amount of unfit students in our school and to identify the reasons why.



Also, we calculated each student’s Body Mass Index (BMI). BMI is determined by a person’s height and weight. The calculated BMI from the selected students shows that the majority is normal. More than 60 percent are eating healthy and exercising the right amount. The number of obese students is about 7.5 percent, which equals the number of underweight students, while 20 percent were overweight. Obese, overweight, and underweight students make up about 35 percent of the selected students, with 5 percent listed as unknown because some students declined to answer the question.



Despite the numerous of fast food restaurants located around Tech, such as Burger King, Wendy's, McDonald's, and Jack In a Box, the majority of survey respondents said that they spend an average of $5 to $20 per week on fast food, including 37 percent who spend $5 to $10 per week and 30 percent spend between $10 to $20 per week. On average, one student eats about one to four fast food meals per week. Approximately 39.2 percent of students eat 1 to 2 meals a week while 24 percent eat 3 to 4 meals per week; 11 percent to 15 percent of the students spend $20 or more and eat more than five meals per week.

One of the questions in our survey asked if a student preferred home-cooked food, cafeteria food, or fast food, for lunch if cost was not a factor. Surprisingly, 73 percent of students responded that they would rather have “good home-cooked food” over fast food or cafeteria food. Many people go to Tech’s cafeteria for breakfast, but fewer eat lunch there. Also, 147 students in the survey correctly answered for the amount of calories in a fast food meal and knew that a typical high student should only be consuming 2,000 calories a day.

The California Teen Eating, Exercise, and Nutrition survey conducted in 1998 proved that less than 1 in 4 teenagers get the recommend daily amount of fruits and vegetables. Approximately 83 percent of Tech students said that they ate less than 4 servings of fruits and vegetables each day, which appears to contradict the fact that more than 50 percent of the students sit down to a home-cooked dinner almost every night. It is very important to eat the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables daily to maintain good health.

The final question in the survey asked how many hours students exercised per week. The results were mixed: 12.8 percent responded zero hours, 30.1 percent exercised half an hour to an hour per week, 9.4 percent exercised from one to two hours, and 47.5 percent exercise more than 2 hours. However, the question included exercising during Physical Education class, which may be a huge factor. Some students play sports and run during the entire period, but some simply sit down and do not participate in any physical activity. Thus, these answers may be flawed.

After conducting the survey, the Tech Scribe has come to the conclusion that most of the surveyed students are normal in weight (although there are still some students who would be classified as underweight, overweight, or obese). However, these results are surprising because most of the surveyed students said that they eat fast food meals at least 1-2 times a week while spending about $5-$10. A majority of the surveyed students said that they only exercise between 30 minutes and 2 hours a week, an amount of time that could be greater. Therefore, the Tech Scribe believes that if students eat less fast food and exercise more, the number of “normal-weight” students will rise even higher than the other classifications.