Sandra Piel Headshot

Author: Sandra Piel | Major: Nursing | Semester: Spring 2025

My name is Sandra Piel and I am an honors student in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas. I am a nursing major and I just finished my second semester of research with Dr. Shreve. We are studying pediatric obesity in Arkansas. My future plan is to continue working on my project with Dr. Shreve next semester and graduate in Fall 2025.

Over 18% of all children and adolescents in the US are affected by childhood obesity. Obesity is a multifactorial disease and can be very complex. Dr. Shreve and I are studying the differences between obesity rates between pediatric patients who seek care at federally qualified health centers and the pediatric population in Arkansas as a whole. Studying this topic is important because it can help to identify causes or specific risk factors of pediatric obesity. This semester while working on my literature review portion of my paper, I have been researching studies and information about overall childhood obesity and effects of sex/gender, socioeconomic class, ages, and rural vs urban living on childhood obesity.

I chose my topic because it is something that I am passionate about and want to learn more about. After graduation I will be staying in the Northwest Arkansas area and plan to get a job and work as an RN. Pediatric obesity rates in Arkansas are very high. As a future RN one of my jobs is patient education. Choosing this topic is not only interesting and a complex topic to research and learn about, but it will help me educate future patients of mine.

I have learned a lot about this topic and myself. Research and writing is not something that comes naturally to me, so this project has been challenging but rewarding. Throughout each step of this project I have had to work hard to teach myself things, as well as seek guidance from my mentor, Dr. Shreve. Working on my literature review I have realized how truly complex this topic is. My first part of the literature review was looking at childhood obesity as a whole. There are many risk factors and negative impacts related to childhood obesity. I have learned how much obesity affects physiological and psychological aspects of somebody’s life. While I have researched different potential factors affecting pediatric obesity like sex/gender, age, socioeconomic class, and more, I have learned that there are gaps in research, conflicting research, and complicated findings.

I met with Dr. Shreve multiple times throughout the semester to go over my literature review as I was working on it and I was able to ask any questions I had too. What’s next for me is to finish my literature review. After I finish my literature review I will compare what I have found in literature with the data we analyze. I am thankful for this research grant because it has allowed me to have time and freedom to work hard on this literature review and thesis project. I have learned so much and am excited I have another semester to work on it with Dr. Shreve.