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Students carrying special cool boxes emerge from the Biotechnion, one of the buildings of Wageningen University and the place you can find the department of Human Nutrition.
What is going on? A doctoral student - also known as a ‘PhD student’ or an ‘AIO’ - is looking for volunteers for yet another experiment with food and nutrition.
But why would students corporate in such a study? The main reason is that they earn money by it, of course. Most students can use some extra financial support. Though besides earning money, there is another benefit to involving in a food survey: you get to know what it is like to be an ‘experimental subject’.
I was one of the participants in a study that aimed to investigate snacks that were eating during a meal and at ‘snack time’ moments. The experiment lasted for 8 weeks and every week we were supplied with yet another bag of groceries. Every day we were offered something else to ‘snack’ with our meals. The first weeks passed in no time, but halfway during the study I started having difficulties with eating all the snacks. Sometimes I would forget about it during my breakfast or my lunch and then I had to eat additional snacks during dinner!
Nevertheless it was a lot of fun to join this study and to experience being a volunteer for a food survey. Are you still in doubt whether you want to participate? Just try and feel what it is like to be a ‘laboratory animal’. Do you dare to take the challenge?
Hanne van Ballegooijen, student of Nutrition and Health
