1. In college, I have made a lot of adjustments when it comes to my food consumption. Prior to coming to Penn State, I was on a pretty strict diet because of dance, and I also had family that cooked for me every day. The food pyramid was followed religiously, and I rarely ate fast food, unless I really had no other option. When I got to school, the opposite happened. I found myself being so busy and unable to find time to cook full meals for myself. I then turned to the lifestyle that I saw the majority of my peers following. This lifestyle is way more fast paced, and grease seemed to be a new food group on my food pyramid. Now, I eat McDonalds and at other fast food restaurants more frequently, just to nourish my body. The social norm when you are a young, college student is to eat unhealthily and make it through school. I have so far done a good job fitting that stereotype.

2. The social norm which is connected to the food choice would be the overconsumption of food, leading to obesity. As previously mentioned, it’s socially acceptable for me to eat unhealthy because I am in college and have a lot of loans. However, my poor eating habits are the gateway into becoming part of the public health issue which is obesity. An additional societal issue that influences what eat is the lack of access to fresh food. In Pittsburgh, some farmers markets were discontinued, and others brought a scarce amount of produce. This is a direct result of poor crops, which now allot more opportunity for people to buy fast food instead of fresh produce from the farmers markets. Given this connection, I think that the new social norm for college students should be discounts on produce, maybe even incentives for eating natural food. Most college students like free and discounted items, so this may improve long term-effects in society. As for the farmers markets in Pittsburgh, I see a huge collective action problem which can only be fixed by increasing biodiversity to potentially grow more food to sell.

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