We are pleased to inform you that Avalon University School of Medicine, Curacao is conducting a research project in collaboration with the Psychology department of the University of Alberta, Canada. The topic is about the Modern Lifestyle of North American and Antillean students.

1. Avalon University School of
Medicine
By Avalon University School of Medicines

2. Modern Lifestyle of North American and
Antillean Students
 We are pleased to inform you that Avalon University School of Medicine,
Curacao is conducting a research project in collaboration with the
Psychology department of the University of Alberta, Canada. The topic is
about the Modern Lifestyle of North American and Antillean students.
 The focus of the project is to highlight the rate and dangers of obesity
amongst the student population, and how obesity affects the health.
 There are many diseases and health related issues that are related to
obesity such as – cardiovascular diseases, strokes, high blood pressure,
diabetes, cancer, osteoarthritis, sleeping problems (e.g. sleep apnea), etc.
It is imperative to observe the student population in terms of obesity in
order to provide adequate preventive measures for the diseases and
health issues mentioned above.

3. Modern Lifestyle of North American
and Antillean Students
The knowledge of population differences in dietary lifestyles in
relation to obesity would greatly contribute to current public health
improvement initiatives as well as for future studies.

4. Modern Lifestyle of North American
and Antillean Students

5. Modern Lifestyle of North American
and Antillean Students
 Curaçao is an unique place in this world, and the universities in
Curaçao have students from the neighboring islands such as
Bonaire, Aruba and the other Antillean islands whom are in pursuit
of a college degree.
 This was beneficial in this research project for the reason of having
a large Antillean population as participants. Likewise, the
University of Alberta is one of the largest schools in Canada that
provides an education for students across all of Canada, thus
representing the Canadian population for this research project.
Criteria for “resident” of each country will be defined as “a person
who has lived in the country for a minimum of 5 years”.

6. Modern Lifestyle of North American
and Antillean Students
 The objective is to measure Body Mass Index (BMI), Waist-Hip Ratio
(WHR) and waist circumference (WC) as an indicator of the
population risk of developing cardiovascular diseases.
 According to World Health Organization (WHO), the normal range
of BMI is 18.5-24.9, overweight is 25-29.9 and obese is above 30;
WHR of 0.7-0.8 for women and 0.9-1.0 for men is considered
optimal; and finally, males with WC of 94cm or more and females
with 80cm or more are considered to be at higher risk of
developing obesity-related health problems such as the ones
mentioned above.

7. Modern Lifestyle of North American
and Antillean Students
 Collaboration details:
 Avalon has been in contact with one of the research professors in
University of Alberta (Psychology department) and he has agreed to
work together with us in this study.Avalon will show priority in
discipline. Nothing is more important than a well-crafted and well-
articulated discipline policy.

8. Modern Lifestyle of North American
and Antillean Students
 Materials and Methods
 Two populations will be compared in this study, the Canadian and
the Antillean population. The variables will be compared to find a
correlation i.e. does having a high BMI mean having a high WHR or
WC. Also, it would be useful to find out if WC alone can be a good
predictor of obesity as opposed to WHR.
 The differences between each population will be measured and a
conclusion will be made concerning the percentage of the
population that is at risk of developing CVD as measured through
BMI, WHR and WC for both populations. However, since we are
not considering other factors that could contribute to the CVD risk,
we will not be able to make any causal relationships in this study.
School of Medicine

9. Modern Lifestyle of North American
and Antillean Students
 The participant pool will consist of students of educational
institutions in both locations i.e. universities on the Island of
Curacao and University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. These
populations will serve as an sample population representative of
the Antillean and Canadian populations.
 Based on the participant pool, our study will only show data for
ages 17 and over; we have decided to make this representative of
the average student population. School of Medicine

10. Modern Lifestyle of North American
and Antillean Students
 BMI will be measured by dividing the weight by the height
measurements, WHR will be calculated by dividing the waist
circumference by the hip circumference, measured with the use of
a measuring tape.

11. Avalon University School of Medicine

12. Avalon University
US Admissions Office:
P.O. Box 480
Girard, OH 44420
Toll Free: 1-855-282-5668
Phone: 330-759-8008
Fax: 330-759-8041
E-mail: admissions@avalonu.org
For More Information Visit us Online:
avalonu.org