They have returned to it and without leaving aside healthy habits, they have focused on added sugars as a substance to analyze. The results have surprised not only students, but also teachers and parents. "A salty product can contain up to 30 lumps," explains Biology teacher Belén Martínez as an example.
They have returned to it and without leaving aside healthy habits, they have focused on added sugars as a substance to analyze. The results have surprised not only students, but also teachers and parents. "A salty product can contain up to 30 lumps," explains Biology teacher Belén Martínez as an example.
It all started in one of their classes when they discussed carbohydrates. It was the topic that raised the most doubts and the key to inviting them to investigate sugar consumption and its short, medium and long-term effects on health, such as childhood obesity and diabetes in adults. From there, hethe thirteen young people They got to work. They began by bringing products from their homes and purchasing those that they also believed were necessary so that their analysis was as complete as possible.
That list of foods included cookies, soft drinks, juices, cocoa, nougat, sweets, salty products... They studied all the labels and carried out the measurements in the laboratory. So that the study was evident and understandable by students of all levels, they translated the amount of the substance to be analyzed that they found in all the samples into lumps. "The consumption of added sugars that we can consume without knowing it is exaggerated," says Martínez, who points out that this statement is the result of another part of the project carried out.
This has to do with conducting surveys of the educational community (parents, students and teachers) about their eating habits and especially about the amount of this substance that they initially thought they were taking. For many, the result was a complete surprise, since as they state in their research, "the biggest problem is misinformation, both on the part of consumers and that which appears on some food labels."
Since they began working in December, they have analyzed thirty products, in addition to holding an exhibition in the center with the results translated into clods. The state of alarm caught the students with most of the homework done. With the selection of the project by the la Caixa Foundation, the thirteen students chose four representatives of the team to defend the study on campus, which this time had to be carried out virtually (normally it is carried out in Barcelona).
Marina Alonso, Violeta Duro, Marina García and Andrea Julián have been in charge of this. For three days and eight hours a day in front of the computer, they have attended talks by the modality in which they participate (health), but also the other three that are part of the contest (emprende, big data and fake news), while in the specific part they had to solve challenges demonstrating what they learned in their project, which they had to present in a video. Now we have to wait for the organization to announce the winners of an initiative to which 2,000 works were submitted.