MRS Survey

A survey was done on MRS (Clayton) residents between May to July 2008. After compiling the data from the surveys of all seven Halls (Deakin, Farrer, Howitt, Normanby, Richardson, Roberts and South East Flats), the results are as follows:

80% of the participants have somewhat changed their diet since coming to MRS and among this 80%, 71% felt that their diet has deteriorated to a certain extent while only 29% expressed that their diet has improved.

93% of the participants cooked their own meals. Among this group, 60% of them cooks in a group. Most of the participants cooked between 5-7 times per week, 66% reported so.

The main barriers towards healthy eating reported by the participants were Time, Effort and Cost.

Most of the participants felt that information on How to cook quick and effortless healthy meals, A readily available collation of recipe of ideas and How to eat healthily on a budget would be useful.

The makeup of the participants wasn't exactly the same as the makeup of MRS residents. The male to female participant ratio was similar to MRS. However, there was a much larger proportion of Australian students who took part in the survey than the actual makeup MRS residents. Also, the percentage of Malaysian and American participants was slightly lesser than the actual proportion in MRS.

However, other than Richardson, the remaining 6 Halls reported that the top three barriers to healthy eating was effort, time and cost. With the results in mind, we have focused on adding recipes which are easy, cheap and quick into this website.

Although some of the dishes may not be cheap but they are cost effective when bulk produced which is especially useful for residents who do group cooking. Even for residents who cook alone, such dishes can be cooked in bulk and kept in the freezer for subsequent nights.