During my sophomore year of high school, I weighed 160 pounds. Now, I am a junior in college, and I barley weigh 130 pounds soaking wet. I had started working out a lot after my sophomore year in high school, and ended up starting college freshman year weighing 145 pounds. My lowest college weight was during my sophomore year, and that was 118 pounds. I remember thinking that this was the lightest I have been since 7th, or 8thgrade.
Considering the pattern of my weight, it is clear to me that I am a victim of college campus hunger. Living on campus freshman year, I did not have a huge problem getting enough food. I was always eating at commons with a group of people, or taking a 3-minute walk to husky, or subway. However, moving off campus for my second year of college made me really start to appreciate my mother’s home cooking. I now had to walk to campus, or cook myself something every time I was hungry. A lot of times I ended up just snacking on something unsatisfying, or not eating anything at all. Getting food became more of a chore, and less of something I looked forward to. On top of that, when I did decide to walk to campus for food, I would normally end up getting something relatable to fast food. On the other hand, when I decided to cook for myself I would end up spending a lot of money at the store, eating half of the food I prepared, and then I would be left with a huge mess to clean up. Eating food had got increasingly more difficult. My grades from sophomore year were not as high as my grades from freshman year, and now reading into college hunger, I am beginning to question how much my diet played a role in this pattern. Had eating less food directly caused me to do not as well in the classroom?
My troubles with eating properly while at school followed me to my first semester of junior year. Knowing what to expect this semester, I had told myself before I moved in that I was going to make a better effort to eat more by preparing myself more meals, and eating on campus at least once a day. This plan didn’t stick for long. I quickly remember that I don’t usually have the time to cook for myself, and when I do have enough time, I am too tired to start cooking. I remembered how cold Bloomsburg gets, causing me to second guess making that walk onto campus for dinner. I came to a realization this fall semester that college campuses are just a place for poor nutrition.
I found the readings about college campus hunger this winter term for technical writing very interesting, and relatable. I had no idea that college campus hunger was such an issue for so many people. Clearly I realized that I was not eating properly while at school, but I just figured it was because I was no longer eating my mother’s cooking and she is a top notch cook. I am amazed by all the research that has been done for college campus hunger, and all of the programs in place to stop it. Bloomsburg Universities program to help eliminate college campus hunger is called “Helping Hungry Huskies”. To have such a program is truly revolutionary, and I plan to use the online cookbook this coming semester to help myself eliminate college campus hunger from my own life.
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