Capstone Project Proposal Draft

Name of student: Lex Mitchell

Date: February 4th, 2022
Teacher: Mrs. Lacroix
Capstone strand I have chosen is Project
Proposed title for my project: Mental Health Cookbook

What is your inquiry question that interests you for further research? It should be a question that
connects with a purpose, passion or personalized area of interest for you. This is a question that
you cannot just google an answer for. Please see examples from your Capstone booklet.

My inquiry question is:

How can I make easy and digestible content for mental health aid and awareness?

Rationale/context: Detail your reasons for choosing this inquiry question. Explain WHY you are
choosing to investigate this topic as a major area of focus. How does this area of inquiry connect
to your passion(s), purpose? Why is it of personal interest to you?

I want to create this cookbook as a way to heal my inner child. It's an offering to myself that I
am capable of great things, and can help others in the process. As someone who has
struggled with depression and eating disorders, it’s important to me that resources like what
I’m going to make are easily accessible to everyone so that they might not suffer my fate.

Background: What background knowledge/connections/prior learning do you have in this

area of inquiry?

My father is a chef turned electrician by trade, but he still cooks frequently and has bestowed
upon me many of his cookbooks. I also have my own personal experience as someone who
has suffered from depression and eating disorders and what one side of the spectrum is like
dealing with. I’ve taken a few cooking and psychology courses in school, and I believe that
this will benefit me.

Career connections: What is your intended career area at this point in time? What
connections does this inquiry question have to your life, academic and/ or career goals?

I would like to be a forensic pathologist. I hope that making a positive impact on adolescents
and young adults now will hopefully make my job as a medical examiner easier in 20 years'
time. I should hope that the more I can do now to spread awareness and aid will help more
people choose healthy and positive life decisions in regards to their physical and emotional
health, and relationships.

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Interdisciplinary and core competencies connections: What subject areas and core
competencies will be connected with your project? Outline and explain the connections.

Foods and psychology are two subjects that are directly connected to my project, as I’m using
my knowledge of psychology to determine how long or tedious a recipe can be before it
becomes a chore, and then use my home economics skills to then produce a recipe.

Core Competencies:

Personal Awareness & Responsibility

I use a variety of strategies to manage my personal well being
 When my website is finally published, it will not only help others well-being, but my
own. These recipes, although in project form, are for my own benefit as well. Once
refined, I can use them in a pinch when I need to, or when my depression leaves me
unmotivated and inspiration-less.

Social Responsibility
I am aware of my community and environment and work independently and collaboratively for
the benefit of others
 I know that many of my friends, family, co-workers, and schoolmates suffer from
various mental health issues that can make them easily fatigued or lacking motivation.
By getting their input I can hopefully make a quick and easy collection of recipes for
them to pick up and choose a healthy recipe from would help them get all of their daily
nutrients whilst not draining their energy.

Critical Thinking
I understand the purpose for my work and consider my audience
 I understand that if I am able to properly publish my website and promote it among my
social circles, I can hopefully save some people from spiraling into an eating disorder
or just going hungry from lack of motivation. No one wants to be told that they’re
broken, so if I can convey my information and help in a light and airy way whilst still
being serious, I can reach and aid more people than I could’ve imagined.

Creative Thinking
I can take my ideas, evaluate, develop, and refine them to make something productive out of
them
 In the last semester, I was stuck on what I wanted to do for my capstone. Once I had
the idea for my recipe collection though, I was set. I knew that this was something that
was achievable and productive. Once I was officially given the assignment, I hit the
ground running, and was able to come up with an official rough draft of my product
with relative ease.

Communication
I can engage in deep and meaningful inquiry for a variety of purposes and audiences
 My project is all about inquiry. How people function with constraints, and how far we
can push the boundaries of stigma to give people suffering from mental illness easy
access to information about their dietary and nutritional needs. I can test the limits of
my creativity and compassion, hopefully resulting in a product that can positively

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 benefit the weary in my community.

Personal & Cultural Identity

I understand how to use my strength and abilities to my advantage and I can explain how I
use them to contribute to my community
 I am what some may call a “food-fanatic”, so hopefully this paired with my passion for
psychology and my talents in biochemistry, I can produce an accurate and fervid
product. Once I have the final website uploaded, I hope that I can reach everyone in
my community that needs it. If successful, I can lower the rates of people that go
hungry due to eating disorders, depression, and other mental illnesses.

Capstone Presentation medium: select one or more project mediums you wish to use to
present your project. Outline and give details about how you will present your project once
completed. You may use a combination of mediums.
o Electronic portfolio: Prezi or PPT
o Physical portfolio
o Website
o iMovie presentation
o YouTube channel

I will be using a YouTube channel to show how-to videos from recipes that will be on my
website.

Description of my Capstone project. Specific Project Details of the Capstone Project: what
will you research, create, study, produce, solve, investigate? What product will be produced
at the end of this project for evaluation. Write a one-page description outlining your
proposal.

For my project, I plan on publishing a website with quick, easy, and healthy recipes to try and
benefit people suffering from mental illnesses and eating disorders. I hope to include five
breakfast recipes, five lunch recipes, ten dinner recipes, five snack recipes, and five dessert
recipes. Of the five lunch recipes, two will be designed to be eaten at home, or right after
making, and three will be designed to take as a work or school lunch. Of the dinner recipes,
three will be crockpot meals, or a “dump” meal, three will be single pan meals, two will be
salads and two will be soups. Of the desserts, three are to be eaten fresh, and the other two
will be to either freeze or store to be nibbled on later. I will be making instructional videos on a
YouTube channel for ten of the recipes. Each of the dessert recipes to be stored and nibbled
on will have videos around seven minutes each. I’ll be making three of the snack recipes,
around five minutes each. I’m going to make all three of the single pan dinners, with each
video being around fifteen minutes each, and both lunches to be eaten at home, around ten
minutes each.

For the YouTube videos, I want them to be filmed in my kitchen, with some of my friends soft
lo-fi as background music. I don’t want to edit the video too much, just so people have an
accurate idea of how long each of the recipes is going to take. I’ll make sure to do some soft
colour grading and audio tuning. I have a neutral background in my kitchen, so I might have to
add some pastel decorations to lighten the mood, some flowers perhaps, to bring life into my
space.

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 On the website itself, I’m going to have a recipe pages, one for each of the meal categories, to
make it easier to navigate, a self-care page, with some suggestions and tips, and a help page,
with national help hotlines, ed recovery resources, and overall information. For the recipe
pages themselves, I want to have pairing items to go with each of the meals. A breakfast
recipe for example might have “take a walk around your local park” and “eat with fresh fruit
such as: xyz”. There will also be science at the bottom of each of the pages. A little blurb on
the ingredients, what's in the ingredients, and how it helps our bodies function/why they’re
important. I believe that this is important to creating an answer to the “but why”’s that a lot of
people have when it comes to meals. There will also a be “where to buy” section at the end of
each recipe, so that people don’t have to scour the world looking for certain ingredients.
Something along the lines of “produce section of most grocers” or “pharmacy supplement
section of your local CVS” etc. I’m also going to add a “how to clean” section, “for stubborn
burnt oatmeal, use xyz.”

For the meals themselves, I’m thinking of a base smoothie recipe for one, with different
variations for different pallets/budgets. A strawberry banana, a chocolate peanut butter, a
mango pineapple. I also want to do either an overnight oatmeal or a baked oatmeal, or maybe
both. For the to-go lunches, I think I’m leaning towards different salads with add-ins, to make it
exciting. At home lunches, probably some sort of sandwich or melt, be-it tomato or tuna.
Crockpot meals will probably be a soup/sloppy joe type beat. One-pan meals will probably be
a veggie with chicken or seared steak. Salads will be different garden/produce items with
cheap and easy to find dressings. Soups will most likely be a souped-up (get it?) tomato or
cream of broccoli/potato from the grocery store. For snacks I want to make different
cheese/nut/fruit combinations for people to try, along with homemade protein bars to take on
the go. For desserts, I want to make a brownie and a cookie, and maybe a tiger butter or
lemon bar.

Resources/ Technology/Skills: Make an assessment of the resources, technology and

skills you will need to be able to complete this project. What is your plan to be able to
access/learn all of the resources necessary to achieve completion of this project? Detail
your plans.

I need to be able to create a working website and YouTube Channel, and be able to edit the
videos I plan to upload. I already know how to make a website and YouTube Channel, and
have yet to learn how to properly edit videos. I have some friends that do YouTube, so
hopefully they can let me know which program they use, then I can use tutorials on YouTube
to navigate the program.

Mentors/Community Connections: What types of mentor(s)/community connections will

you need to help you complete your capstone project? How will your mentor(s) help you?
What is your plan to access the mentorship/community connections necessary for this
project?

I will probably need to reach out to my aunt for the science of the recipes, but I will try and

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 collaborate with a dietitian or nutritionist in the area to help with

Project limitations: What are some project limitations and potential obstacles that you foresee
that might affect progress with your Capstone Project?

My own mental health will be my biggest pitfall. I will need to find time to actually accomplish
everything and try not to get sidetracked. It also happens to be quite the task. Making one
recipe can be difficult let alone an entire collection.

Other considerations: List and detail any other related information/ considerations about
your project that you feel should be included in your project proposal.

I am aware of the fact that an eating disorder is a mental illness, however I make the
distinction throughout the project to try and emphasize the more physical impacts versus
mental impacts through eating disorders and mental illnesses as a whole.

References:

Attach a REFERENCE LIST. Your list should be written using correct APA formatting.
An example is provided on page 21 of your Capstone booklet.

References

Bjelland, I., Ueland, P. M., & Vollset, S. E. (2003). Folate and Depression. Psychotherapy and

Psychosomatics, 72(2), 59–60. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48510738

Daga, G. A., Gramaglia, C., Bailer, U., Bergese, S., Marzola, E., & Fassino, S. (2011). Major

Depression and Avoidant Personality Traits in Eating Disorders. Psychotherapy and

Psychosomatics, 80(5), 319–320. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48511367

Hvas, A.-M., Juul, S., Bech, P., & Nexø, E. (2004). Vitamin B₆ Level Is Associated with

Symptoms of Depression. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 73(6), 340–343.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/48510825

Moreh, S., & O’Lawrence, H. (2016). Common Risk Factors Associated with Adolescent and

Young Adult Depression. Journal of Health and Human Services Administration, 39(2),

283–310. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44504679

Register, J. D., Katrevich, A. V., Aruguete, M. S., & Edman, J. L. (2015). Effects of Self-

Objectification on Self-Reported Eating Pathology and Depression. The American

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 Journal of Psychology, 128(1), 107–113. https://doi.org/10.5406/amerjpsyc.128.1.0107

Truschel, J. (2020). Depression Definition and DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria. Psycom.

https://www.psycom.net/depression-definition-dsm-5-diagnostic-criteria/

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