digitalproject1

TW// Eating Disorders

Since I was in high school, eating breakfast consistently has always been challenging. I am not a morning person, and I especially am not hungry for the first ~hour that I’m awake. The near-constant rhetoric about “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” made me feel guilty for my body not being ready for food. I love breakfast foods, but I was never prepared to eat when the structure of school or work made time for each meal in my busy day. This notion of “you can only eat at a specific time” has only grown as I’ve aged.

When I got to college, I found that most students seemed to compete for how little food they ate, especially my female friends. It was most prevalent during the first couple of months of college when everyone was trying to avoid the dreaded “Freshman 15.” The conversation was always “oh I only had a coffee for breakfast” or “I’ve barely eaten this week” or even “I drink so much coffee because I know it will suppress my appetite and the less calories the better!” This kind of language is especially harmful in its promotion of eating disorders among young girls and the overall undereating most women feel at some point in their lives.

This rhetoric surrounded me until this past summer when my job was filled with manual labor and having enough fuel to perform my tasks safely made eating breakfast almost a necessity. Additionally, everyone I worked with constantly asked each other if we had eaten enough or had enough water so it felt like a safe space. One of my coworkers even loved eating so much she ate two small breakfasts and two dinners most workdays which was the first time in my life that I had seen a woman not torn down for eating what her body needed. Despite this, the notion of undereating in young women is still too prevalent in college and while it still exists, it will continue to be harmful.

This week we continued to make salads at Lowry like we always do because we’re basic vegetarians. However, this time we tried to make different salads to see who could make something new to change things up. We wanted to see how different combinations could come together in order to be more appetizing. One thing about Lowry that we do enjoy is that you can make your own salad & decide what ingredients are in it unlike most meals there. One of my friends has been starting to add fruits like strawberries or mandarin oranges to her salads, like lots of online recipes recommend. On the other hand, I have been trying recipes that suggest adding chickpeas to my salads. It’s been a very interesting week of salad making and I can honestly say I think we have upped our cooking skills.

I think this week I became aware of how many vegetables & green foods I eat throughout the week. I think that while it was nice to see this, it showed me how much protein I might be missing. This shed light on the bigger issue of campus dining not having many options for sources of protein if you don’t eat meat. This was one of our thoughts when the college was hiring the new dining company/staff because it’s important that they can create a balanced meal for all students. 

How and Where People Eat:

In Wooster, it seems as though there are only a handful of places to go out to eat. While most of the places are absolutely delicious, fun, and have great drinks*, it can become mundane.

This weekend my boyfriend and I decided to try something new. We have gone to Basil and gotten China Garden to go, what seems like a hundred times. Yet, we were both craving Chinese food and thus were faced with the dilemma to try something new in Wooster or venture out. When Googling: “Chinese food near me” we discovered Wild Ginger right here in Wooster. We discussed if we should take a gamble. We decided we should try, it was Saturday night after all, and if it was really bad, we’d have another day to recover before we began another busy week.

When we arrived, it seemed fairly busy, and smelled amazing! We were sat pretty quickly, and even had to ask for more time before ordering. The restuarant was very cute, not overly fancy, and seemed like the perfect spot for two college students to enjoy a meal.

We both decided to order an appetizer to start. I ordered the Chicken Basil Dumplings, and my boyfriend ordered the Spring roll. We were starving and we watched others get their food with envy. However, once our food arrived, it was well worth the wait (even though it was not a very long wait).

Similar to many others, my boyfriend and I were looking for a new place for “date night”. We were pleasantly surprised with WIld Ginger and will be going back for more in the future.

So, I was visiting girlfriend this past weekend and we love to eat out at restaurants in Miami. My girlfriend is passionate about her fitness goals and wants to make sure she’s bikini ready for the summer. So, when she orders drinks, she always gets the diet or zero sugar versions. Now I like to order diet coke and zero Gatorade just like her and it tastes good. Being interested in health and fitness myself, this got me thinking whether ordering these sugar free drinks makes a difference than compared to drinking the normal version. 

After researching more, I found that sugar-free sodas are not healthier for you than consuming the regular kind and that sugar-free may actually end up causing even more weight gain in the long run. The studies behind this found that drinking diet soda “ultimately ends up causing you to consume even more calories in other ways, like having an extra cookie”. This is because of the reasoning that by having saved calories in one instance, you can make up for it in another way. Diet sodas can help when wanting to cut down on a soda addiction though. Also, sugar-free carbonated drinks, including diet sodas and sugar-free flavored sparkling water, may cause problems ranging from headaches to increased risk of developing diabetes. Even though these sugar-beverages contain fewer calories than traditional sugar-sweetened drinks, consuming them may contribute to weight gain.

I think in my girlfriend’s instance, it is good for her to keep ordering the diet drinks because it is fewer in calories and fits her needs and lifestyle. Although, diet coke apparently can cause some health problems I am sure regular coke is not much better. All in all, she is not a frequent soda or Gatorade drinker, she normally just drinks water. But, when she wants to treat herself to a soda, why not make it diet right? Although, I know all of you coke lovers will be offended by the fact that we think diet coke tastes the same as regular coke…