American
and College Culture & Food
There have recently been a lot of
changes regarding Americans and their relationship to food. While America is a
place with a vast amount of different ethnicities and cultures, there is one change
that can be seen almost universally across the population. This is the culture
of eating less with friends and family, and more either on the go or in front
of some form of technology. Despite this universal change there are exceptions
and levels of extremity. There are what people from other countries think of as
the “typical” Americans who eat mainly fast food and are becoming obese. But
also, there are the more hippie and green types of people who eat all local,
natural, and organic. The food you eat depends mainly on the way you were
raised and the culture you are living within. When a young adult moves away to
college, there is a new type of food culture that arises. Students are so busy
with schoolwork and social aspects of college that they have almost no time to
think about where their next meal is coming from, and thus arises the culture
of convenience.
When thinking of
college food, the first thing that comes to mind is a cafeteria. A cafeteria is
the fastest most convenient place for students to dine where food is always
available. At home, students had only a few options of what to eat for
breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This was either what there parents were making or
the food they had at their house, which was probably also bought by their parents.
Going to college is the students first time in their life that they can choose
exactly what they eat without being monitored by anyone but themselves. There
are as many unhealthy options as one could possibly imagine. Most students are
not used to having a soft-serve ice cream machine sitting in their kitchen as
well as fresh made fries always at the ready. Because these foods taste good
and are so convenient, students are tempted to get them. They are in a rush and
want quick food and energy, which these junk foods provide.
For
the health conscious student, there is also a salad bar out all the time as
well as some sort of steamed vegetable. Still, these are not very good quality
and certainly not local or organic. Students who are used to eating better
quality lettuces and vegetables have no option but to settle for the mediocre
quality of the cafeteria because it is so convenient. It is not realistic for a
student to keep the ingredients of a salad bar in the mini fridge in their
rooms. Students are forced to eat whatever quality food is put before them in
their cafeterias because for one, they are forced to buy a quite expensive meal
plan. Secondly, they do not have the time or means of transportation to do
otherwise. Students are sucked into a lifestyle of convenience in which they
can only eat what is readily available.
During the week sometimes students do not even have the
time to eat lunch or dinner in the cafeteria. Because of their busy class
schedules they do not have time to walk all the way back to their dorm for a
meal. This forces them to grab some kind of premade food from a café or
convenience store around campus. The reason they are eating this kind of food
is not for pleasure but because it is what is available at location and time in
which they are searching for food. This idea is backed up by the article Convenience Food: Space and Timing which
claims that “convenience foods” are becoming increasingly popular not because
of people wanting and liking them, but because of the organizational problems
that come along with the increasingly busy daily lifestyles of people (525). This
increased business has been a generational movement. Not only has it affected
students but the American population as a whole. With increased technology and
work ethic, business people, the working class, and stay at home parents always
have some task that has to be done. With all of these different priorities
family meals are becoming less and less common while convenience foods are
taking a huge rise. As society progresses it is the youth and the students that
will keep this progression moving. It would only make sense that they would
have the most time consuming work to do and be very high consumers of
convenience foods because of their inconvenient timing and space for eating
meals with friends or family.
These convenience foods are more often than not very
unhealthy. Students eat quick snacks such as popcorn and potato chips to fill
their void of real meals. Their lack of being in the right place at the right
time to eat a real meal combined with the high stress and late nights of
working creates what is called the “freshmen 15”. This refers to the 15 pounds
freshmen are said to put on during their first year at college. While obesity
is becoming increasingly prevalent in America it is interesting to think about
why the youth gain weight specifically during their freshmen year of college.
This increasingly busy lifestyle that American society is developing is very
stressful and nerve racking. There is always something important that has to be
done and there is always not enough time to do it. This high stress and lack of
time to eat right causes both students and American society to load up on
unhealthy carbohydrates and sugars in order to get the quick burst of energy
they need to complete their tasks. This lifestyle is not providing a healthy
environment for students and the future of society.
In American culture eating is a social event, so the
majority of people enjoy eating in groups. Most people grow up having lunch
with friends at school and then family dinners when they come home. With age
comes the increased business of American society, making meals with friends and
loved ones harder to come by. College is one of the most social times of your
life where you are constantly meeting new people and doing things with them. It
is safe to say that most students would rather eat with friends than alone. However,
this is not always possible given the time constraints and different schedules
of all students. A lot of the time students do not have an open time for lunch
at the same spot on campus as one of their other friends. Because of this often
students will eat alone doing some kind of homework to keep them occupied. This
greatly changes the culture surrounding eating. Instead of it being a fun
social event where you get to enjoy food and share stories with friends or
family, it is a time of solitude in which the student is eating mediocre food
only because they are starving. It is not an enjoyable fun experience, but
instead just something that has to be done to keep your body happy.
While eating in front of a computer or while “vegging”
out in front of a TV is also less enjoyable than eating with friends, it is
also much worse for you. A study done by John Hopkins University has shown a
correlation between a greater food intake while watching television than eating
while listening to classical music. It was discovered that, “Overall caloric intake increased by 71% while watching television”(Moray,
72). A correlation has also been see between BMI and the amount television
hours watched per day. The more TV a person watches, the higher the BMI they
have. This makes sense because this is a sedentary activity and snacking is
often common while watching TV. This same principal also could apply to eating
while doing the many other sedentary activities that American lives consist of.
We are constantly working and doing different tasks, however none of the
require any bodily expenditure. Americans get in their car to drive to work or
school where they sit at a desk and then drive back home where they sit at a
table or in a chair and do more work, and finally they end their night by
laying on the couch by the TV. All this time consuming junk foods and
convenience foods because they cannot seem to find the time to have an actual
meal.
This concept of always snacking while going about daily
tasks is called “eating on the go”. This is probably the most convenient way of
eating when you have absolutely minimal time to get the nutrition that you
need. Eating on the go could be simply picking up a sandwich and eating it on
the way to class, or grabbing an apple on the way out of the cafeteria. Certain
foods have even become specifically designed for this purpose. One great
example is made by Campbell’s, “None leave behind the pot, stove, bowl, spoon,
or table more fully than Campbell’s Soup at Hand”(Howitz 42). Soup at hand is an
easy, graspable mug, which can be microwaved and can fit in the cup holder of a
car. Eating on the go is a completely different concept of eating than
what is thought of as a traditional meal. It is hard to decide whether this can
even be called a meal. You are getting the energy and calories you need from
eating whatever food you choose to grab and eat while walking, which is the
evolutionary and survival purpose of eating. However, it is lacking the aspects
of sitting in a space, probably at a table with others while conversing and
eating. This is culturally what people in American consider being a meal.
The
increasingly popular concept of eating for convenience is changing the cultural
aspects of food for American’s. While everyone from students to business people
to stay at home parents doing errands have embraced this new form of eating it
is probably the most common around college campuses. This is because of the
ability of the youth generation to pick up and adapt to new trends as well as
the very busy schedule of college students. This change to eating quicker meals
by ones self may not seem significant however it has the ability to greatly
change the culture around eating. This new culture of eating for convenience is
causing obesity and malnutrition because of the unhealthy nature of these
portable foods. While it is definitely a problem now, as any study on the
increase of American obesity can show you, it is only going to get worse. The
youth are so easily susceptible and they will follow the example of the older
population of America. If all of these junk foods and convenience foods are so
easily available they are going to continue eating them more and more
frequently. The culture and happiness that comes from eating meals with loved
ones and sharing traditional, healthy, home cooked meals is going to be lost.
If the American population does not find a way to keep incorporating these
family meals into their schedules they are going to be lost in the next
generation. Students will forget the importance of these home-style meals as
they get older and it will only increase this cycle of unhealthy convenience
foods and in turn unhealthy obese Americans.
Work Cited
Alan, Warde."Convenience
food: space and timing", British Food Journal, Vol. 101 Iss: 7 pp. 518 –
527, (1999). Web 25 April 2012. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00070709910279018>
Horwitz, Jamie. "Eating at the Edge." Gastronomica: The
Journal of Food and Culture, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp.42-47. University of
California Press, 2009. Web. 25 Apr. 2012.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/gfc.2009.9.3.42?origin=JSTOR-pdf>.
Moray, Jenna, Andi Fu, Kristin Brill, and Mònica Mayoral. "Viewing
Television While Eating Impairs
the Ability to Accurately Estimate Total Amount
of Food Consumed." Bariatric Nursing and Surgical Patient Care.
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., 2007. Web. 30 Apr. 2012.
<http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/bar.2006.9991>.
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