- A personal experience in which food choice was influenced by the social norm was in high school. The normal thing to eat for breakfast was a bacon egg and cheese breakfast sandwich from Harborside Deli because it was fast and neighboring my school. For lunch it seemed everybody bought the schools lunch whether it be chicken fingers and French fries or a sandwich from their deli, because they did not have enough time between classes to go out to eat for lunch. Although this food was far from delicious, everyone ate it anyway. Knowing my food intake and my class mates food intake is more than just 1 serving of breakfast and 1 serving of lunch, I would stop at the vending machines located in my school lobby almost 3 times a day and buy candy or chips. This would help entertain me in class as well as others. The influence of my eating habits during high school was simply from time rationing.
- Eating according to the social norm at my high school came with two societal issues: obesity and not getting enough of certain necessary nutritional needs. A major society issue, especially in the United States, is obesity. My school has the current technology they need to serve us processed foods. These processed foods contain an abundance of fake meat such as my chicken nuggets, preservatives such as the deli section in the cafeteria and actual technology such as friars to fry the French fries and other sides that create the unhealthy eating habits that lead to obesity. On the healthy pyramid, the main consumption is vegetables and the least needed consumption is unhealthy proteins. I find this interesting because most students at my high school are consuming the unhealthiest foods most and the healthiest foods least. For example, I ate cookies, candy, and fried food everyday rather than vegetables and lean protein simply because my school did not offer those types of food. I think if the school is aware that the norm for eating is buying their lunch they should show effort to make improvements in a healthier selection of food to offer.
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Hi，my name is Baixue Chen. Your post really catch my attention because I found I have very similar experience with you. I also influenced by social norm in high school. Actually I have no food choice because I only can eat what they provide. It also causes a result of lacking nutritions. I believe it is school’s responsibility to ensure students can grow healthily, so they should consider meal problems. In addition, I believe that is why when we apply colleges, we also value the food they provide.
http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/02/m06/
Hey Samantha, my name is Lizzy and I found your blog post interesting because it dealt with almost exactly the same issue I addressed. I, too, talked about school lunches and how schools can control whether or not children can pack their lunches or be served it by the school. I have personal experience with schools banning packed lunches, incorporating the cost of daily lunch into tuition, and offering only healthy lunches of nutritional values. This measure could be a solution to the problem encountered in your school, because if healthy options were readily available, maybe students would choose them over the fast food. Here is a link to my blog in which I describe this: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/01/44832/. Great post, thanks for sharing a genuine experience of yours!