36200
Argument, Evidence and Intuition
Assessment
Task 1 - The Quantified Self
Anthony
Hamilton
Student
No. 10168577
The Presentation / Report can be found at
The Reflection can be found on the next page
The Report
Introduction
As Technology continues to evolve handheld devices offer a cost effect way of recording large amounts of data on the human being. The Quantified self is about tracking one's person it offer an opportunity to set goals and live a more healthy life. This report is based on my personal Kilojoule counting.
Method
To record the number of kilojoules consumed on Smart phone and or iPad through my daily activities. My Fitness Pal has been downloaded and installed from www.myfitnesspal.com data has been record from a 2 week period ending on January 21st 2015.
Foods consumed have been recorded by selection from the My Fitness Pal data based or entered manually.
Kilojoules Consumed
Counting Kilojoules has be an informative and yet motivating process to meet a goal of consuming 10,544 Kilojoules per day, this was set for a person of my size to lose weight in a healthy fashion with a target weight of 90Kgs
One of the benefits to have a data base of foods and there kilojoules it offers one a chance to look at my regular daily foods and compare them to the My Fitness Pal food data base. It has offered an on formed choice what in terms of potential Kilojoules consumption prior to consumption.
On the 18th of January I was feeling ill one could suggest it was due to that amount of alcohol intake from the previous evening where one did not wish to get out of bed on the Sunday. Although from past experience that amount of alcohol consumed was not significant it could have been a build-up of lack of sleep burning the candle at both ends.
Disscussion
Is there a difference in the average kilojoules intake between countries and cultures?
There are some many differences between our countries particulary when it comes to what we eat and or what we have available to eat
In comparing kilojoule intake from a snap shot of a number of countries across the globe it seem that the Asian countries such as Japan and China have a lower Kilojoule intake on average.
Generally speaking this may stem from their rice based diet or cultural differences if one could call marketing of fast foods a cultural difference in comparison to western countries.
Does the amount of kilojouces we consume on a daily basis affect our health in term of our height and our size or how much we grow?
In comparing the average daily kilojoule intake to the average height there seems to be no reliable relationship. As Italians on average are generally shorter than the Asian countries yet have a higher kilojoule intake.
Can the amount of kilojoules consumed on a daily basis affect our life expectancy?
China rules out any relationship between life expectancy and the amount of kilojoules a citizen consumes on a daily on average
Personal - Weight Gain Weight Loss
In terms of my personal weight gain / loss for the tracked period, there was little variation in the initial stages yet this may be down the scale used.
Initially I used the scales at home yet in the second week of data recording the scales at the local gym offered higher degree accuracy or offer a high degree of variation.
Conclusion
On the grand scale comparing the data for country to country these seems to little evidence to show any consist relationship between the daily kilojoule consumption and any of the metrics we measured. This is not to say that the daily kilojoule consumption may be a component that part of the equation
References
Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations - http://www.fao.org/about/en/
United Nations Department of Economic
and Social Affairs - http://esa.un.org/
Wikipedia.org - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height
Reflection
In reflecting on the quantified self-exercise is that it is easy to make changes to your life style if you have all of the data. My Quantified self-assessment was based initially on counting Kilojoules and with the used of My Fitness Pal it has made the task somewhat effortless to calumniate data.
Having said that remember to record the data was the challenge in get a high degree of accuracy. Personally I have more confidence in the accuracy of data when it is entered on a daily bases.
Recording the data or matching the foods consumed with My Fitness Pal data base was challenging at first yet and after installing the application on a hand held device scanning a foods bar code removed all doubt in terms of matching the food consumed.
Discovering that the average kilojoules consumes by an Australian was in the vicinity of 13K Kilojoules per day and over the past 14 day I was yet to exceed 12K Kilojoules was quite a relief, although it made one feel that they could indulge a little bit more. That also assumes that the average Australian consuming 13K Kilojoules in not increasing their body weight.
One unexpected outcome was that I expand or extended my exercise routine, one could suggest that this was due to becoming more aware of one ’s self or the choices one could make. Moreover I now have a goal to work towards, where previously there was no or little self-management or idea of what direction to take.
Having a data base of foods including nutrients along with historical data offers me a more informed choice in terms of daily food selection and as a result better health management.
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