My freshman year of college I went to school as a vegetarian, and my food choices were hugely affect by social norms. During college being a vegetarian become a huge challenge. Social norms dictate that you eat meat during, holidays, cookouts, and in everyday life. My choices in the cafeterias were very slim. Also, being a college student I didn’t have enough money or time to cook healthy and be a vegetarian. Sadly I had to change my eating habits because I was becoming very unhealthy. Social norms definitely changed the way I eat today. The social norm in today’s society is to eat meat, and many vegetarian options aren’t offered. People choose food types on what they perceive is the social norm, and sadly I had to become one of these people. Also, being a vegetarian in college made me feel like it odd one out. I didn’t want people to look at me or treat me differently because I didn’t eat meat.

Obesity has become a huge societal issue in our country. A major cause of this is food chains and poor meal choices as I experienced in college. Fast food makes getting food cheap, easy, and fast, which is something Americans value. To get food this cheap and fast we’re sacrificing how healthy the food is. Another major issue is that healthy food is expensive. For a struggling family it’s a lot cheaper to eat off the dollar menu than to prepare a homemade meal. Obesity is a direct result of an unhealthy lifestyle and bad eating habits. However, this issue is very hard to take care of. It’s impossible to have the perfect diet or lifestyle. The social norm of eating meat also causes environmental issues from how much meet we need to produce. People in today’s society idolize people with the perfect figure. I think that there shouldn’t be an ideal body type. The new norm should be for everyone to be happy with who they are, as long as their healthy.