Food Choice Influenced by Social Norms

I grew up in a household where my dad always cooked our meals for the family. I began the day with making eggs/cereal, packed my own lunch and ended the day with a homemade meal. I never got into fast food and the few times that I ate out at restaurants, we had healthy options. I think that the hardest part about coming to college was the social norm of “convenience eating” whether that be from the dining commons or smaller food stores that sold mostly packaged foods. I struggled to continue eating as healthy as I was used to in my first year at college but quickly learned the helpfulness of making sure I always had healthy snacks in my dorm. I was able to get back to eating fresh (but not necessarily local) food while still being able to eat at the dining commons whenever I needed.

Food Choice Connected to Social Norms

My example above shows a lot about the challenges of “convenience food” that I faced when I first came to college. When people come to school getting used to a schedule can be very difficult and suddenly it’s so much easier to just go to the dining commons or order food from downtown. Generally food choices like this are the not the healthiest and you see things like the “Freshman 15” happen. Even if a student is able to go out and shop for themselves, finding the time for local markets can be tough. Instead, you end up in major supermarkets like Walmart supporting extremely large commercial farms and the farms that are local to the area begin to suffer. The social norms of eating at school can definitely be difficult and a lot of the time it’s due to students beginning to adjust with their new schedules and the lack of time that they have for always cooking (if they are even able to in a dorm) their own food. I think just being introduced to easier ways to buy local/supermarket food and the time to cook and eat it would help things out a lot.

System Diagram