Many colleges post the caloric values of the dining options, and the totals are frighteningly high; burgers, pizza, and cream-based pastas fill out the roster of "main course" options, leaving little room for students to delicious meals that are also healthy. With no appealing healthy options (and not wanting to eat unhealthily), students may turn to starvation and become addicted to the psychological "high" that they acquire from as a result. A research study attempting to measure whether the college experience promotes anorexia must account for the difference in likelihood of developing an eating disorder for a student who is in college vs. one who is not in college. In order to test the relationship between college and eating disorders, the study would monitor the weight of 10 students from the same high school who enter college and the weight of 10 students (from the same high school as the other group) who did not enter college. The independent variable for the study would be age; it is necessary for each of the subjects to be an identical age, since the study must account for the fact that eating disorders are to a large extent influenced by age. Another independent variable would be gender; the study would focus on females, not only because eating disorders are more common amongst women but also because the contributing factors contributing to eating disorders may be different between genders. It is essential that the study be manageable, and formatting the experiment to address both genders would enlarge the scope to an unreasonable degree.

There are also dependent variables for consideration. First of all, the most significant dependent variable concerns whether or not the student is in college. As discussed above, students in college are faced with many environmental conditions that may contribute...

However, there may also be factors contributing to an eating disorder among students who decide against going to college. Another dependent variable is the socioeconomic status of the students involved in the study. It may be the case that students who come from rich families may be more likely to acquire an eating disorder. On the other hand, those who do not attend college and have no money may develop a psychological objection to food borne out of their need to save money. Accordingly, the study must account not only for whether the students are in college but also their socioeconomic status.
The proposed result is that the college lifestyle promotes eating disorders. Although for many people college is the most enjoyable period of their life, it is also an environment filled with pressure, including peer pressure, challenging academic material, and the stresses associated with living on one's own for the first time. There is often a paradox between the intellectual growth that one acquires in the classroom and the physical wasting away that occurs to one's body during the college experience, and the pressures of the college lifestyle contribute to the development of eating disorders. On the other hand, it is expected that students who do not go to college are less likely to have an eating disorder, as they often have a job and are not surrounded by the limited food options, athletic pressures, and academic stresses of college. It is not expected that socioeconomic status will play a strong role in the result, as inexpensive dining options are often more calorie-dense than expensive ones. Ultimately, while the sample size for the study is too small to draw any definitive conclusions, it would provide an introduction to the relationship between college life and anorexia.