Working on Fast Fact Sheets

Author: Swetha Sirigineedi | Major: Biology

My name is Swetha Sirigineedi. I am majoring in Biology in Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. I have been doing honors research under the mentorship of Dr. Jamie Baum in the Food Science Department. I have been awarded a grant for the Summer 2021 term. My future plans include completing my honors research this upcoming year and defending my honors thesis next spring.

I started my research this spring. I was interested in doing research in the Food Science department because I once took a Biology class that was cross-listed with a Food Science course, and I thought it was very interesting. I found my mentor, Dr. Jamie Baum, while reading about research being done by professors in the Food Science Department. Dr. Baum does a variety of different research in nutrition. One of her research projects she does in collaboration with Dr. Erin Howie Hickey in the Exercise Science Department. I decided to do my honors thesis research in that project. I originally thought that my research would only be related to Food Science, but instead I had the opportunity to participate in research in a collaborative study involving diet, nutrition, exercise, and other health behaviors. This appealed to me because I liked how broad and wide-ranging the study was.

My project is on how an educational program affects participant’s ability to reach sleep-related goals. The educational program led by Dr. Baum and Dr. Hickey is called Diet, Food, Exercise, and Nutrition During Social Distancing (DFEND). The DFEND program was a twenty week program that began in February of this year and lasted until June. Participants in the study set goals related to many different health behaviors. DFEND consisted of weekly educational sessions on Zoom that focused on a different aspect of behavior and health. Participants in the DFEND program were required to participate in the weekly challenge that related to that week’s lesson. In addition to the weekly Zoom lectures and challenges, study participants were able to personalize their educational experience by calling in to weekly office hours with nutrition, physical activity, or behavior experts to ask for more advice specific to their goals. At the beginning, middle, and end of the twenty week program, participants filled out a survey that assessed health behaviors, physical and mental health, and student/work-related outcomes. A sleep quality questionnaire was included in that survey as well.

I participated in research this summer by helping build content (e.g., fast fact sheets) for the program website, attended weekly meetings with the project manager (Emma Hendy), and attended weekly DFEND sessions. The fast fact sheets were another helpful aid for the participants in the program. Some of the fast fact sheets I have written were related to sleep, but I also wrote some on nutrition and behavior change. I wrote fast fact sheets on sleep hygiene, tips on how to get more sleep, healthy snack alternatives, and implementation intentions. As I researched these topics to write fast fact sheets, I myself learned a variety of information related to different aspects of health. I liked how even though my research was on sleep hygiene, I got to learn about the other topics of importance in the study by writing those fast fact sheets and attending the weekly sessions.

What is next for me is to analyze the data. The data from the DFEND program has been collected, and I will analyze it in the fall semester. I will also soon discuss with my mentor on whether I use only the already collected data, do another small study, or combine the DFEND data with another survey.

I am looking forward to learning more about the results. I will get to see how participation in an educational program can elicit behavioral change. I will not only get to learn about reaching sleep related goals, but other health goals as well. This grant helped fund research on how healthy lifestyles can be promoted. As we all know, healthy behaviors have benefits in the short term and long term.