Literature Review Template:
Author(s) / Theory / Main Argument/Hypothesis / Key concepts/ assumptions / Method / Results / Major point to make in my discussion (evaluation + connection)
Kubik MY, Lytle LA, Story M. / Food practices in schools have an effect on student Body Mass Index (BMI). Schools are influential environments and school-level factors require targeted attention from researchers and school communities. / Student BMI would be positively associated with the number of food practices permitted by the school. / 3088 eighth graders were involved in the school-based dietary intervention study. Body mass index was calculated based on self-reported height and weight. A 7-item school-wide food practices scale was created using data from school administrators. Certain environments and environmental practices are influential – school environments are influential and have been implicated in rising obesity rates. / Cross-sectional design that ended up using data from 16 schools in the MSP/St. Paul area. The questions asked of the administrators addressed food-related school policies, schoolwide food use guidelines, and school-based health promotion activities. This resulted in a 7-item school food practices scale (independent variable). BMI was calculated and if it was in the 85-95th percentile, the student was considered at risk for overweight and if it was 95 or greater, they were considered overweight.
General linear mixed modeling was used to test the study hypothesis. / 15% of students were classified as at risk for overweight and 8% were classified as overweight. The schoolwide food practices scale was positively associated with students’ BMI. Results indicated that for every additional food practice allowed by a school, student BMI increased by 0.10 points (P=.03). / Many schools have many food options/choices outside of the school lunch (and/or breakfast) program. These choices include a la carte, vending machines, foods as rewards and incentives, and fundraising opportunities. With this, many schools also allow students to eat at various times during the day whether it’s in the classroom or in the hallway. Regardless, all of these unregulated opportunities to consume what is likely a high calorie/low nutrient density food have a negative effect on students’ BMIs. This study, like others, not only found that the use of food in classrooms and school fundraising and as reward and incentive for students are common practices, they are also practices that are negatively affecting our students’ current health as well as potentially affecting their adult health.
Crawford PB, Gosliner W, and Kayman H / Schools have an ethical obligation to act in response to the increase in incidence of obesity among children. Focusing on nutritional health promotion in schools can support the common good by reducing the impact, including substantial financial costs, of future diet-related disease associated with the childhood obesity epidemic. Optimizing nutrition in childhood is critical to learning and future productivity / Because children are required to spend half their waking hours in school and because they consume a substantial portion of their daily food there, school is a logical focus for efforts to encourage healthy dietary behaviors to prevent obesity and its consequent individual and collective costs / The authors of this study suggest that beyond strategic considerations, the concept of the common good justifies actions that may appear to conflict with freedom of choice of children, parents and school staff, or with the interests of food and beverage companies (RJWF.org). The purpose of this article is to present a bioethics framework for justifying stricter regulation of school food, specifically, to determine whether this type of health promotion in schools is ethically justified / To determine whether current school environments meet an ethical threshold or whether these environments fall short and should be altered, the authors applied Beauchamp and Childress's 4 foundational principles for a discourse on the ethics of a biomedical intervention: autonomy (addressing conflict around individualism), beneficence (addressing the social benefit), nonmaleficence (addressing the issue of doing no harm), and justice (addressing equity in burdens and benefits). / Using a bioethics framework, helps formulate a rationale for interventions that support the crucial role schools play in providing nutritious meals that help children meet their dietary requirements. Schools can and should model an environment that promotes learning and health. Interventions should limit competitive foods to only those foods that contribute to meeting the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and do not contribute empty calories. Only foods that support children's nutritional health should be offered and available competitive foods should be equally healthy supplements to the school meal, not less healthy alternatives. / Foods that compete with nutritious foods offered at schools should not be offered. Not only are these foods contributing to the obesity epidemic, they are interfering with learning. Schools that offer non-nutritious foods “confuse” students because students are “taught” what is healthy but are still offered unhealthy choices at school. Providing foods of poor nutritional quality to finance school programs and profit commercial entities fails to meet society's ethical obligation to minimize harm, provide benefit, and protect vulnerable children who are a captive audience. Children suffer the consequences of such practices, and children from low-income families, who are most vulnerable to food insecurity, are at greatest risk for damage from consuming empty calories at school. Fostering optimal nutrition not only protects against obesity but is also essential for maximizing cognitive function and academic performance.
Author(s) / Theory / Main Argument/
Hypothesis / Key concepts/ assumptions / Method / Results / Major point to make in my discussion (evaluation + connection)
Kubik, M. Y., Lytle, L. A., and Story, M. (2005).Schoolwide food practices are associated with body mass index in middle school students. Retrieved from
Crawford, P. B., Gosliner, W., and Kayman, H. (2011).The ethical basis for promoting nutritional health in public schools in the United States. Retrieved from
- What is it about the study that makes it a demonstration and not a true experiment?
- What can be concluded from the results reported?
- How could the study be made into a true experiment?
- Think of a few hypotheses centering on the issue of obedience to authority. How could the demonstration be expanded to include an independent variable?
Demonstration vs. experiment – I think I can safely say that if you come to a junior high science fair, you will see your fair share of “demonstrations” rather than “experiments.” Bordens and Abbott state that one kind of research design that resembles an experiment but lacks on of the crucial features of a true experiment, the independent variable, is called a demonstration (2014). They also tell us that a true experiment requires exposing subjects to at least two treatments and that a true experiment shows the effect of manipulation an independent variable (Bordens & Abbott, 2014). This example is a demonstration simply because it doesn’t have anything that is “manipulated.” There is a “participant” and an “authority figure” and a cabinet with posters about the dangerous contents. This example just reveals that if 17 people are exposed to an authority figure telling them to do something that disregards the signs, 13 of them will do it. Therefore, the statistic of 13/17 disregards the signs is just an observation of the demonstration and not a conclusion.
When teaching science, I always try to tell my students that if a demonstration is interesting, they should think about the ideas of change, create, and compare in order to make the demonstration into an experiment. With this example, we first need to implement a control group. The control group will be used as the standard for how people respond when told by an authority figure what to do to themselves or another person. In this case, our control may be a group that is determined based on results from the demonstration. An independent variable that could be used to make this an experiment would be to change the type of “authority figure” used (e.g. instead of a police officer, use a person in a lab coat and the test with a banker as the “authority figure and maybe a pastor or handyman). Once these changes are made, then the experiment can be created and carried out. For example, now the participants are simply put in the room, they observe the signs, and they are told to move the box from the compartment by a person wearing a lab coat (presumably a professor). A potential hypothesis could be “If anyone with perceived authority tells students to move a potentially very hazardous box, then the majority of students will follow that instruction. Another hypothesis for this may be “If the person making the request to move the box is not perceived as having authority, then very few, if any, will follow through and move the hazardous material. A null hypothesis could state that there is no causation of moving the box due to the person requesting the move. Regardless, upon completing the “experiment,” the results need to be “compared to the control group and a determination can potentially made about causation and/or correlation.
Bordens, K.S. & Abbot, B.B. (2014).Research design and methods(9thEd.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.