Something is very, very wrong with a world where donuts and cupcakes are sold in 100-calorie packs.
Cynics can tritely accuse the media, the fashion world and the shrinking size of Hollywood celebrities all they want, but society’s collective resort to portion-sizing, carb-avoiding and calorie-counting indicates more than skin-deep desires to look attractive.
Living in an increasingly complex, high-tension, anxiety-ridden world, food today becomes a compelling outlet to relieve these stresses ““ sometimes to the extent that we forget food’s original purpose as a source of nutrition and nourishment.
Dr. Elizabeth Gong-Guy, director of UCLA Student Psychological Services, said, “We have in our culture higher rates of eating disorders and obesity. There are a lot of stressors people are responding to by eating.”
College life is perhaps the best illustration of this fast-paced, high-tension world, where students are bombarded with growing competition over jobs and grades, juggling multiple extracurricular activities, pressure by the media and irregular sleeping patterns.
The first-year transition to college can be particularly stressful, where a more ordered life at home is replaced with a spontaneous but unstructured one.
“The college population is vulnerable (to these irregularities). … There is homesickness, and there are a lot of stresses from adjustment,” said SPS psychologist Dr. Naomi Chao-Singer.
Allie Swislocki, a first-year undeclared Hill resident, who admits that some of her friends show abnormal eating patterns, testified that “random eating is conducive to disordered eating,” such as binge eating or eating unhealthily at irregular hours (2 a.m. Bruin Café run, anyone?). She said that some of her friends’ desires for greater structure seem to feed their obsession with food and weight.
“There are a lot of people that feel really guilty about eating, which isn’t normal. A lot of times people try to starve for part of the day and then binge,” Swislocki said. “It’s almost like a trend. It’s cool to obsess about it.”
Not surprisingly, Swislocki noted that her friends who engage in disorderly eating patterns also show instances of depression or drug usage due to significant dissatisfaction and stress. Her friends who are not affected by considerable stressors do not show these preoccupations with food, she said.
And this trend is starting earlier as younger and younger generations are thrown larger and larger responsibilities and the burden of navigating through an increasingly interconnected, competitive world.
But if you thought the teenage struggle with food was premature, get this: A study from the Center for Change, a national health care organization dedicated to body-image research, shows that 80 percent of 10-year-olds have attempted to diet.
As I sat in a coffee shop thinking that these numbers are biased hoaxes, a real-life example sat before me as if by divine intervention.
“You’re losing weight. I can see it in your face,” a mother said to her slim, approximately 9-year-old daughter.
I could hardly believe my ears.
“Watching what you’re eating is good, but don’t do it every day,” the mother advised, as they carried out venti-sized caramel frappuccinos. And the very fact that children are dieting indicates the demands of today’s world, in which they grow up too fast, too soon.
What happened to the care-free days when children could enjoy a simple chocolate bar without being consumed with the guilt of putting on weight?
While being health-conscious is important, on those stressful days, let yourself eat cake. Living in this crazy world, we certainly deserve it.
If you prefer a glazed donut to a whole-wheat one, e-mail Yoo at jyoo@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.