Does Knowledge Gained Through The Media On Cholesterol Consumption And Its Harmful Effects Lead To An Actual Decrease In Consumption

By Jodi M. Mimaki

Introduction

Increasing awareness of the effects of cholesterol to decrease consumption and the chances of heart disease, this was the thesis of my research paper. For my field project, I decided to see if this statement had any truth to it.

I decided to take this approach to cholesterol in diet after noticing TV commercials. I noticed that there were a lot of advertisements for low-cholesterol oil, butter and so on. Everyone seemed to be pushing for the low-cholesterol diet, and why they should use their product to lower their cholesterol intake. This new push could be found everywhere, in magazines, newspapers, and on the radio, not only on TV Realizing that the media plays a significant part in almost everyones life, I thought it would be interesting to see if this message was getting across to people.

I was not able to directly observe the eating habits of a whole cross-section of people, so I decided that the best way to gather my information was to have people fill out questionnaires. In my field project, I decided to ask the question, does knowledge gained through the media about cholesterol consumption and its harmful effects lead to an actual decrease in consumption? The only change that was made from my original thesis was that I specified the media as the source of information on cholesterol.

The data I hope to gather will add to my understanding of the issue. It will probably not be similar to that found in the library because the questions I asked were from a magazine article, as well as, some of my own.

Analysis

In making the graphs for my data, I decided to compare the male responses to the female responses. Because half of the questionnaires were answered by males and half were answered by females, also the fact that I tried to represent all the different age groups, I thought this was a good basis for comparison.

I found that on the average, both male and female watch the same amount of TV a week, that is about 25 to 40 hours. Also, both the males and females read the paper at least 3 times a week if not more. Therefore, the information intake was approximately the same.

According to the questionnaire, most people have at least some idea about cholesterol and its harmful effects. Very few people have no idea or a lot of information. This was enough to change the eating habits of a little bit. That could mean changing the way they cook or the type of butter they use. However, more than half of the people questioned did not change their eating habits.

By the current standards, almost everyone needs to change their eating habits and lower their cholesterol intake levels. This measure is done by measuring the fat intake and comparing it with the fiber intake. Your fiber intake should be more than your fat intake. If your fat intake is either the same or more than your fiber intake, then you need to lower your fat consumption. According to the questionnaire, almost everyone seems to be consuming too much fat.

This information is by no means complete. I asked very general questions only for the purpose of getting a perspective on the issue. The means by which the information was analyzed was also very general. However, I feel that for my purpose, the data I gathered was quite sufficient.

Conclusion

The data seems to show that both male and female should know about cholesterol. The reason for the female score to be lower on intake could be numerous. It could be because she has more pressures placed on her by society to be thin. It could even be coincidental. I really dont have enough information to make assumptions why the scores are lower.

I also discovered that people are not changing their eating habits based solely on the information they may be receiving through the media. It could be because they are set in their ways to change, or that they dont take this message seriously.

This conclusion is not a generalization of society, this is not even a conclusion on the people in Hawaii. All I can say is that this is a conclusion on the information I gathered. There is an endless amount of alternative explanations, it is almost impossible to out the whole truth. However, I can say that by going by my data, my thesis statement does not hold true.

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