Individual Project Proposal

My thesis involves the question of what mechanism tool can I use to create healthy
recipes that actually succeeds in its bigger goal? People living in the 21st century have
a horrific amount of food choices. Unless they are following a religious or traditional
ritual, they are using their freedom to the maximum and eating whatever 'they' find
best. This tool will allow me answer this question however before doing so, a huge
amount of research has to take place. The bigger goal for this tool is to prevent people
from living a poor lifestyle in terms of their diet and physical inactivity. Many
conditions have been proven to occur from these issues such as cancer, heart disease
and diabetes. This thesis has been developed in a very well-structured manner. In
order to get this project together, many tasks have been taken on. This includes
researching, writing, surveys and interviews.

Thorough literature research has supported my argument, by defining the terms that
are required to obtain healthy eating. During my research, I decided to focus on a
specific question. In this case, I decided to apply the question 'How can people
overcome barriers in order to eat better?'. This allows me to focus on my website so it
realistically helps and improves someone's diet and their fitness. I came across a wide
range of requirements such as 'nutrition, food preferences, diets and health food'. All
these requirements have been put together to increase health promotion by using
different types of ill-health.

In this thesis, sustainability is the first principle to succeed in reaching the main goal.
Through research, I have been able to find out that it is very important to eat food that
is 'organic, local, seasonal and plant-based' (Ecological Economics - Volume 23, Issue
3, Pages 189-200: Robert Goodland 1997). Systematic reviews have been carried to
discover the bridges that have been made between young people and healthy eating.
These reviews led to a mixed result of answers. It was said that fast food was very
easy and cheap to buy. It was also said that fast food is preferred simply because of
the taste. A survey carried out between students in Middlesex University which asked
them which food they prefer the most lead to a unexpected result. Almost all students
said they preferred Subway from all other fast food places and food. This result led to
me to pay a visit to Subway in the university in which I asked the manager about the
food that they make. My questions were based on the types of bread they use and
what exactly is inside the food that they make. After telling the manager the reason to
my visit, she showed a sign of concern. She claimed the subway is a very bad habit
for these students and they need to cut down. She told me that the requirements of the
customer is very vital as the wrong ingredient could lead to problems for herself and
the company. She told to visit the company website and have a read of the nutritional
information and allergen information. This allowed me to discover many type
allergies and nutrition. This helps my project as I know what appeals to young people
the most and what types of nutrition can help the people. Allergies will also be a part
of my website.

For this individual project, I will be undertaking the role of creating a website that
enables the user to search through many different recipes. The recipes that will be
stored and listed will be very appealing to the user in terms of the image of the
particular recipe and the colouring. The user will be able to personalise their page
through internal searches. This will be discussed further.
To create this website, I will be using many different programs including HTML,
JavaScript, CSS, many databases to store data and also a server will be required with
the right requirements for this particular website, which will be discussed in the
deliverables section. More complex functions and data might be used as the project
gets more complex. I have tried to add more things to the website in order to make the
website better.

The deliverables of this project includes the main objective of the project which is to
show user different types of healthy recipes. This website will produce description of
steps on how to make the specific recipe. Before this is done, users must go through
different processes to get to their defined recipe. A navigation will be created enabling
users to choose between Diabetes, Children, Thin People and Vegetarians. These
options may somehow interlink when finding a recipe therefore this will be covered.
A example is if a Thin person is diabetic the recipe will wary as they are combined.
Another deliverable will be the result of adding a personalisation tool which allows
the user to add allergies which they may have. The result of this would be specific
recipes being removed from the page of which contain this specific ingredient the user
is allergic to. To make this website more appealing, I will be adding another
personalisation tool in which the user is able to add their own recipes. This allows the
user to take part in the website and help it become a better website. The final
deliverable will be allowing the user to create their own diet plans for weeks or
months.

The problem that this project or website will be addressing is the problem of many
illnesses and diseases that are caused by not having a healthy diet. This website will
enable users from all ages to find an amazing recipe which is very healthy and be able
to make it easily. Many people in the public suffer from Diabetes and many children
often have food poisoning from eating junk food. This website will include none of
the such. As mentioned before these recipes will be very appealing to the user and
they may not realise how healthy it is until they actually go into the steps, instructions
and ingredients. I have decided to take on this project because I have become very
vary of the impact of my food choices. Everything we eat makes a impact on our
health and also the environment. If we can change the way we eat, we would be able
to decrease the chances of us getting ill no matter whether it is long or short-term.
Many problems arise from what we eat as that is the main thing our body is taking in
along with water. Water on its own does not cover the vitamins and proteins that a
human body requires to stay fit and active. This website will be the solution to this
massive problem that nobody is seeming to realise.

Special food equipment has been invented such as pots that are made to cook food
without oil. This means you can cook chicken or rice without having to use oil. They
thought that this would be the solution to the problem yet they made the price of this
equipment so high, it is unthinkable. The people that are having the chicken and chips
from their local chicken shop or adding all the spices and seasoning at home into their
food are the ones that cannot afford this equipment so they continue with this trend.
Many people have been taught these issues and yet they still ignore because food is
simply food. Food is something that fills your stomach for that exact moment you are
hungry and it never really matters what you are putting into your mouth as long as it
looks and tastes good. No one will stop and ask how much sugar and fat is in a Kinder
Bueno Milkshake or a Double Chocolate Chip cookie or cake before they eat it... This
relates back to my idea of making this website which allows people to make food
which they find delicious. Before making this particular recipe, the user would see an
image of a particular food that brings water to their mouth as it looks so tasty however
they have no idea what lays inside this recipe. Once people realise, it is so easier to
maintain a healthy diet and yet eat such amazing food which others probably have not
tried, and the word would spread.

In terms of evaluation, I will be evaluating the usability of the website. This means
checking the speed of the website, checking whether or not the website is user-
friendly. Also, checking the security of the website could be an aspect of my
evaluation. Many questions have been taken down in order to evaluate my work
properly. This include 'How easy is it to find information?', 'How long does it take my
pages to load?' etc. Another type of evaluation that will be take place is through
checking the style of the website. This means that the website will need to meet the
requirements of being a impressive and positive website through a design perspective.
The style is very important as it affects the target audience. The website can give
multiples types of feelings through websites, this can be through seeing messy or
crowded websites. But also, they can feel a way from a playful and formal website.
The images used in the website will also be evaluated. This will be done by making
sure they are consistent and align with the feel and graphics of the website. The final
type of evaluation that will take place will be the content. As far as the other types of
evaluation techniques, content matches in importance. The content of the website
must get across to the user through very simple and large information. This means that
text and font cannot be written in small size or a font that is impossible to read. The
website must be useful.
List of resources
https://www.pakladies.com/
https://www.eatyourselfskinny.com/
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/recipes
https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/media/899796/healthy-eating-updated-links-oct-
2016.pdf

List of relevant books and article/publications:

Tom Kerridge’s Fresh Start
Veggie Lean in 15 by Joe Wicks
Happy Food by Niklas Ekstedt & Henrik Ennart
Blackberry Cottage Cakes with Secret Ingredients From Aubergine to Zucchini Book
by Kate Saunders
https://www.everydayhealth.com/healthy-recipes/eat-fresh.aspx
https://www.everydayhealth.com/healthy-recipes/pasta.aspx
https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/default.htm
https://academic.oup.com/her/article/21/2/239/671343
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1162/1088198054084707
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092180099700579X