Project Title: Food App

TOTAL FUNDING REQUESTED: $5,000

PROJECT DURATION: 2 years

PROJECT DIRECTOR: Riley Cook, Julia Mason, Alex McArtor

ORGANIZATION: CALIFORNIA POLYTECHNIC STATE UNIVERSITY

GRANT NARRATIVE

A. Needs Statement

● Problem Statement: Students at Cal Poly suffer from the inability to make healthy

choices about on campus eating due to poor nutritional knowledge.

● Significance

○ Prevalence: Nationwide, between 31 and 35% of the college-aged population is

overweight or obese and eating disorders prevalence is between 13.5% for women

and 3.6% for men. This means that between 48-52% of the college age population

have unhealthy eating habits.

○ Severity: Poor nutritional choices in college can be the start of a lifetime of poor

nutritional choices, leading to chronic health conditions and increasing national

healthcare costs. Additionally, these students may be starting families in the next

few years and have the opportunity to pass on their nutritional choices to future

generations, perpetuating the healthcare problem into the next generation.

● Known contributors

○ Portion Size

○ Sodium, fat, sugar content in convenience food

○ Lack of knowledge of how to make healthy choices and read labels.

○ poor nutrition education in schools

● Establish a NEED by showing the existence of a GAP

○ Review current organizations, programs, or activities targeting the problem

■ Current community health services and programs include PULSE, HEAT,

STRIDE, and PolyFit. Peers Understanding Listening Supporting

Educating (PULSE) is a peer health education program on the Cal Poly

Campus that strives to supported the mental and physical health of all

students. One of the four subdivisions of PULSE is the Health

Enrichment Action Team (HEAT). Services HEAT provides are dietary

analysis, disordered eating, eating healthy on campus, fitness nutrition,

freshman 15; fact or myth, nutrition myths/ fad diets, supplements,

specialized diets and weight management. Centers for Solutions Through

Research in Diet and Exercise (STRIDE) is a team of students, faculty,

and community partners whose goal is to further the knowledge and

advance the practices in obesity prevention and treatment. PolyFit is a

subdivision of STRIDE that offers free measurements of health, body

composition, and fitness.

○ Discuss the different components of the programs and their strengths and

weaknesses.

■ The services these programs provide are extremely helpful, however the

downfall is the accessibility. For example, when a student is on campus

and is going to make a food decision, they are not going to visit these

programs for advice. Instead, the student is more likely to quickly and

easily pull out their smart phone and open the mobile app.

○ Critically evaluate these programs and determine where a gap (or more) exists.

○ The main gap in the programs is the accessibility. College students today are

technology driven, and an app would provide virtually instant answers to their

nutritional questions, and cater to their technology values

● State the critical need! This is the driving force for a SOLUTION.

Cal Poly students critically need to understand where their food is coming from

and how it affects their bodies in order to make healthy decisions that will promote their

lifestyle and goals.

A. Goals & Objectives

1. Goals

a. Increase the proportion of college and university students who receive

information from their institution on unhealthy dietary patterns.

b. Increase the proportion of online health information seekers who report easily

accessing health information.

Objectives Desired Outcomes Time

Increase student use of

technology based nutrition

information.

Receive 500-1000 app

downloads.

One quarter (10 weeks)

Increase student use of Polyfit

for body composition testing.

5% increase in Polyfit

scheduling/ participation.

One year

Increase student use of

STRIDE for obesity

prevention and treatment.

5% increase in STRIDE

appointment scheduling.

One year

Increase student use of

PULSE for mental and

5% increase in PULSE

appointment scheduling.

One year

emotional health needs.

Increase student use of HEAT

for dietary analysis and

personalized nutrition

planning.

5% increase in HEAT

appointment scheduling.

One year

Increase self-reported ability

to make educated nutrition

choices on campus.

10-15% increase in self-

reported surveys of nutritional

knowledge.

One quarter

Increase consumption of

fruits and vegetables on

campus (whole, Grab n Go)

5% increase in campus dining

sales of whole fruits and Grab

N Go cups.

One quarter

Identify students who would

utilize a mobile app to make

nutrition choices on campus.

Receive 500 students who are

willing to download app as

self reported in survey.

One quarter

Increase self reports of

awareness of diet options on

campus (GF, DF, religious…)

10-15% increase in self-

reported surveys of diet

options on campus.

One quarter

Decrease consumption of low

nutrient density snack foods

on campus.

5% decrease in campus dining

sales of food items such as

chips, candy, soda.

One quarter

A. Methods & Participants

○ The community of focus is California Polytechnic State University San Luis

Obispo. Specifically, the target population is freshmen, as well as students and

faculty who eat on campus. The purpose of the needs assessment is to identify the

factors that contribute to a nutritional problem and a lack of nutrition knowledge

in the community.

○ The demographic breakdown of freshmen on campus is provided in Table 11.

Since Fall 2010, the majority of students have identified as White, however the

percentage has fallen from 63.8% in 2010 to 59.6% in 2013. Through the same

three years, the percentage of men and women has stayed consistent at around

53% men and 47% women (Cal Poly Fact Book Fall 2014). Information

regarding trends and health of students can be found in Cal Poly's own

1 Saavedra, F. Mauricio, Ph.D., and Et. Al. "Cal Poly Fact Book." Fall 2014 Fact Book (2014): n. pag. Web.

longitudinal college health study, FLASH, which tracks the health behavior and

outcomes of students throughout their college careers. This information may be

used to examine and intervene in modifiable health behaviors associated with

weight gain, high blood pressure and other risk factors among college students.

The questions asked in the study are available to the public, however a request is

required for the actual data. We have sent an email to the lead researcher who is a

faculty member in the Cal Poly Food Science and Nutrition Department, and are

waiting on his response.

2. Describe the activities you propose to carry out to achieve your objectives.

○ Design a mobile app to provide easily accessible information about diets,

nutritional facts, making healthy choices on and off campus, and connecting the

Cal Poly community with nutrition related resources.

3. Describe your evaluation plan

○ How will you test your objectives?

i. contact PolyFit, STRIDE, PULSE, HEAT for numbers of students signing

up for evaluations

ii. release a survey in year two about nutritional knowledge and diet options

on campus

iii. contact campus dining for numbers of whole fruits and Grab n Go cups,

and food items such as chips, candy, soda

○ What type of evaluations will you be performing? (You may be conducting more

than one.)

i. Increase in sales of healthy food options on campus.

ii. surveys and focus groups

○ Summarize your measureable outcomes in a table

4. Describe partnerships (for this project, you must include at least one community partner,

preferably more). List who they are, and what they will do.

○ Students from computer science students: will help develop the app and maintain

the app.

○ Cal Poly Corporation to work with us to get nutrition information about the

campus food.

5. Prepare sustainability and dissemination plans:

○ How will the program continue if funding is cut?

i. Cal Poly student senior projects and volunteered time

○ How will you share the results of the program?

i. Mustang daily newspaper

Timeline of Activities

Task Time to Complete

1. Conduct surveys, focus groups, and CNA to

determine needs of community.

6 weeks

2. Obtain grant funding. 4 weeks

3. Research specific diet options and write literature

reviews during senior project.

10 weeks

4. Compile on campus nutrition information and sort

into diet categories.

4 weeks

5. Collect contact information for community and

campus resources.

2 weeks

6. Program app including all diet, nutrition, and

resource information during Computer Science Senior

Project.

10 weeks

7. App evaluation and feedback meetings and

surveys.

3 weeks

8. App improvement Ongoing

BUDGET

Budget Category Costs Year 1 Costs Total Direct Costs

Personnel: Salary

Research Team Salary $3,000 $3,000

Programmer Salary $1000 $1,000

Total Salaries $ $4,108

Supplies

Focus Group Food $100 $100

Print Materials $200 $300

Incentives $150 $150

Survey Monkey Access $300 $325

Total Supplies $750 $875

TOTAL COSTS

$4,635 $5,060

$5,060

Research Team Salary ($3,108): A salary is needed to pay 4 person research team for

their time dedicated to senior project. This cost is calculated as $259 per unit, 3 units

per senior project, for 4 students.

Programmer Salary ($1,077): A salary is needed to pay a Cal Poly senior computer

science major to program the mobile app and update the app during year 2. Calculated

as $259 per unit for 3 unit class.

Focus Group Food ($100): Food is needed to feed focus group participants and gives

them incentive to come to focus meetings. We calculate as $30 per focus group for 3

sessions.

Print Materials ($300): Print materials are needed to raise awareness about the mobile

app and are to be used for marketing and promotion.

Incentives ($150): Incentives will be provided at informational booths encouraging

people to download the app. Calculated as $10 for a large Costco pizza, divided into 20

slices, provided for 300 people.

Survey Monkey Access ($325): Survey Monkey Membership is needed to access survey

results for CNA, evaluation, and follow up surveys. Calculated as $300 for one year and

$25 for additional month for evaluation.

Indirect costs are included in cost of tuition as Cal Poly students wherein the majority of

the work will be produced during senior projects.