Throughout middle and high school I played field hockey. In middle school I never had a problem with keeping up with the rest of the girls on the team. However, in high school, I noticed things start to take a shift. I was getting out of shape and couldn’t keep up with everyone as well as I was able to when I was younger. I couldn’t figure out why I was falling behind though. I was training the same amount of time as everyone else. It turns out, the food I was eating was majorly affecting my condition, even with all of the working out I was doing. After conditioning in the summer, I would typically have a bowl of ice cream and have processed, convenient snacks throughout the day. I decided to change my norm to snacking on fresh fruits and vegetables and healthier snacks like cheese sticks and yogurt. Not only did I feel much healthier, but I was also back to being in good shape for field hockey.

Unfortunately, eating healthy is not easy for all people. Eating healthy foods can be very expensive. As module six stated, eating food that is produced locally is usually herbicide- and pesticide-free, which is very good for your diet and health in general. In addition to that benefit, locally grown food does not need to travel as far. The advantages that stem from that are far-reaching. For example, the food miles and energy used to transport the food are much smaller and that effects the green house gas emission for the better. All of these benefits do not come at a cheap price though. The locally grown food is much more expensive. Having a diet of mostly locally grown food is definitely not attainable by a lot of people. However, in my opinion, the social norm should be to at least make an effort to incorporate some locally grown food into our diets.