Student blogs

Yes, the blog’s title is really true! In a course in the Master’s Programme in Nutrition Science, we had an outdoor class. Interesting, isn’t it? See the feature image above as a proof 🙂 The outdoor activity was the part of the third course. The title of the course was Diet, Physical Activity, and Fitness: Assessment and Evaluation.

It is very good to know that we are not only learning about nutrition, but also about physical activity in this programme. I think, this is what makes Master’s Programme in Nutrition Science at KI different.

The outdoor class: doing the UKK walk test

The outdoor class was when we tried to do the UKK walk test. During this test, the students had to walk two kilometers as fast as possible in the flat surface. Sounds easy? Give it a try first before you conclude!:p

Formerly, I thought that it would be effortless since I am used to walk three kilometers everyday to take my children to their schools. But apparently it took quite an effort. I think, it would be much easier to do 2K run than to walk as fast as possible. However, I made it! 🙂

The purpose of the test is to measure someone’s physical fitness. If you are a gym-goer, perhaps you often hear that phrase. Physical fitness is basically the ability to perform daily activities with vigor.

There are many ways to measure physical fitness (including the one that people usually use in the gym), but not all the measurements are valid. The UKK walk test had been proven as valid and simple method to measure aerobic physical fitness.

Another exciting lesson

Another exciting lesson in this course was when we learned about anthropometric measurements. Actually, the learning outcome was to be able to suggest, justify and critically discuss the appropriateness of multiple assessment methods and their validity. But the course leader made the lecture more interesting by giving us an opportunity to measure our own anthropometrics using various devices.

My friend, Núria, is measuring her body composition (Image courtesy of Resthie Putri)

Fun statistics project was included in the course

How could statistics possibly be a fun thing? But yes, at least for me, the statistics we learned in this course was really fun. Before this programme, I have learned statistics for two years. But it had never been this enjoyable.

There were two reasons why I could enjoy the statistics lesson in this course. Firstly was the way the course leader taught us. Eric Poortvliet, the course leader, delivered the lectures in a very simple and attractive way.

A useful tip: Try to read some basic statistics before you start the course. If you do so, you will not get headache when you see my syntax in the course (Image courtesy of Resthie Putri)

Secondly, it is because we used our own data (of course, the data was anonymous) to run all the analyses. We collected the data (including the UKK walk test and anthropometrics data) during the course. It was so interesting when I could compare my physical fitness to the other students in the class using a statistical test. It also felt so fascinating when I could know what kind of students underreported their food intake from the stats!

We analysed our own data for the final exam. The graph above was the part of my exam! (Image courtesy of Resthie Putri)

That was my review of the third course in Master’s Programme in Nutrition Science! See you on the next blog! 🙂

Have any comment, question, or suggestion? Contact me at email (resthie.putri@stud.ki.se) or LinkedIn (Resthie Rachmanta Putri).

Reference:

Oja P, Mänttäri A, Pokki T, Kukkonen-Harjula K, Laukkanen R, Malmberg J, et al. UKK WALK TEST – Tester’s guide [Internet]. 4th ed. Ojala K, editor. Tampere, Finland: UKK Institute; 2013. Available from: https://www.ukkinstituutti.fi/filebank/1118-UKK_walk_test_testers_guide.pdf