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Author: Maddie G.
Year in Review
[ “Year in Review” is where you should reflect on the past year and show how you have evolved as a person and as a student. You may want to focus on your growth in a particular area (as a leader, scholar, researcher, etc.) or you may want to talk about your overall experience over the past year. For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]
G.O.A.L.S.
As a first year student, I can only start to plan out my G.O.A.L.S. My plans are as follows.
Global Awareness: I very much want to study abroad. Ever since I began taking Spanish in middle school I’ve wanted to go to Barcelona, and after studying Chilean culture in high school, I put Chile as the first place I want to travel to. I think its very hard to get a good idea of global diversity and different cultures without going out into the world and seeing them for yourself. I was lucky enough to be able to spend 2 weeks exploring Costa Rica with a wonderful company called Bold Earth, and that trip made me appreciate diversity and only made me want to get out and see more of the world. I think I’ll also gain some global awareness just be taking a variety of Spanish classes, and if possible I would love to learn another language as well.
Original Inquiry: As someone who is very meticulous about what I eat, I would love to do some research on human nutrition, particularly on how meat and dairy affect the body. With veganism becoming an increasingly popular diet, I would like to contribute to the research that really makes veganism sound. Additionally, I think it would be very interesting to study the effects that veganism has on disease and cancer development. On another note, as a member of two comedy related clubs, I’m very excited to start writing comedy sketches and articles and have those published or performed. I’ve been writing comedy sketches for a year or two now, and I’m very excited to watch my writing improve with the help of these clubs.
Academic Enrichment: One of the things I value most is education, and I took all my classes very seriously in high school, graduating Magna Cum Laude with an honors diploma, as well as taking 10 AP classes. I intend to take all the classes required for my major and minor, and hopefully I’ll have room to take some extra classes on genetics, astronomy, and history, since these are things I also love to study. Since I’m so passionate about nutrition, its not uncommon to find me watching documentaries on nutrition and the food industry, since the more I know, the better.
Leadership Development: I have always been a leader, and as one of the only first-year students in Sundial and Backburner, I hope to be able to secure a leadership position in both of these clubs in the next few years. In high school I was the captain of my lacrosse team, and I very much enjoyed being a leader for the girls on my team. In group projects for class, if people aren’t working well together I like to say something so that the group does the best work it can.
Service Engagement: I’ve done a lot of service over the past few years. In high school I completed about 175 hours of community service for a variety of organizations, such as The Cleveland Botanical Gardens, The Cleveland Culinary Launch Kitchen, children’s summer camps, and I did some community service in San José, Costa Rica. I don’t know what my plans are for community service are here at Ohio State, but I hope to find something I can do throughout my entire time here.
Career
[“Career” is where you can collect information about your experiences and skills that will apply to your future career. Like your resume, this is information that will evolve over time and should be continually updated. For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]
Artifacts
Honors Thesis Review
In this study, the effects of aerobic interval training were observed after several weeks of testing done of mice. Different types of exercise do different things in the body, and in this study max VO2, running speed, blood lactate levels, and different skeletal muscles were looked at to observe the effects that this specific type of exercise had on body function and performance. Skeletal muscle comes in many different varieties, two of which are slow contracting and fast contracting. The former are low-powered and are best for endurance based activities like a long jog, and the latter are best for short bursts of high intensity such as sprints. Muscle fibers are easily adaptable, and can switch between the two forms depending on the demand required by the body. For example, studies show that endurance training (like a long jog or run) has been shown to trigger fast contracting muscle to slow contracting muscle. In other words, the body demanded more slow contracting muscle to accommodate the endurance training, so the body converted fast contracting muscle to slow contracting muscle. If the body were doing more high intensity interval training, the opposite would occur, and slow contracting muscle would be converted into fast contracting muscle. Also measured was VO2 max, which is the amount of oxygen (measure in volume) consumed at maximum effort. The more aerobically fit an organism is, the higher their VO2 max will be. Lactate levels were also measured, which is the amount of lactic acid found in the body. When engaged in exercise, the body breaks down carbohydrates and produces lactic acid as a side effect. The greater amount of blood lactate found immediately after exercise can be attributed to a greater amount of work performed (harder exercise.) The more often exercise is done, the greater tolerance an organism will have to lactate accumulation.
The study found that the mice that completed more exercise were able to run at higher speeds, had a higher VO2 measurement, had lower levels of lactate (meaning their bodies had a greater tolerance to the lactic acid,) and a slight increase was found in the amount of fast contracting muscle while a slight decrease was found in the amount of slow contracting muscle fibers. These muscle transformations make sense, since the type of exercise the mice were doing was a interval training, which fast contracting muscle is more suited for.
If I had done this study, I would’ve added a third group of mice on top of the two groups that were already studied (sedentary and exercise groups.) I would’ve added a group of mice that were doing endurance training, so that there was one group of mice doing interval training, and another doing endurance. I think it would be interesting to see what the muscle fiber transformations would’ve turned out to be. I think the comparisons between lactate levels and VO2 max also would’ve been interesting to see, as these are good indicators of the level of fitness an individual has. There results could indicate which type or training is better for overall health or specific performance goals, such as weight loss.
For future research topics related to this one, I would suggest studying the effects of interval training vs endurance training. With so many types of exercise out there, it would be good for people to see which type of exercise causes which effects so they can choose the type most appropriate for them and their personal goals. I would also extend this study to show the effects of exercise on other functions in the body, such as blood sugar or resting heart rate. You could then extend the study again to include the two types or training, endurance and interval, to show the different effects those two different training styles have. Additionally, you could maintain using one type of training, but have two groups of mice doing the same training and change their diets to see how that affects the muscles and VO2 measurements. For example, one group could eat a diet of high carb/low fat content, and the other could have a diet of high fat/low carb content. At the end of the study, you would be able to see how each diet changes the body.
Annotation: Writing this review was my first time looking at an honors thesis, and I was so impressed with the author of the thesis I reviewed. This assignment gave me a very good idea of the types of things I could research and how to do such research. I found this particular thesis to be very interesting, and I think it gives really good info for anyone who is deciding between what type of training to do, endurance or interval.
About Me
Maddie Gottfried is a first-year honors student from Cleveland, OH majoring in Health Promotion, Nutrition, and Exercise Science with a minor in Spanish. If not in the library, you may find her at a spin class or in her room watching the latest health documentary. Maddie is a member of both The Sundial and Backburner Sketch Comedy, and she hopes to be able to continue to grow her comedic skills. In the next few years at Ohio State, Maddie hopes to take a variety of classes, exploring interests such as astronomy and genetics, as well as improve her Spanish skills by studying abroad in Chile or Spain.
Maddie’s interest in health and fitness peaked when she was in middle school, and only continued to grow as she learned more and more. As a fan of almost every type of exercise, she hopes to one day help other achieve their fitness goals by being a group fitness instructor and a personal trainer. Maddie is currently a vegan, who believes that eating well is crucial to a long and healthy life. She also helps to contribute to cancer prevention by researching the effects of food on cancer development.
Maddie is very much looking forward to exploring all the opportunities that Ohio State has to offer, and she is very grateful for the opportunity to do so. Go Bucks!!