Regarding food, many students may be living on their own and responsible fortheir meals for the first time in their lives (Counihan 1992; Keim, Stewart, andVoichick 1997)

Cultural constructions of the college years as a time free from worry or respon-sibility can have the negative impact of encouraging unhealthy behavior while alsoproviding techniques to opt out of change even if research suggests these years asa time when long-term habits may be formed

The main concern with the unhealthy eating college student trope is that it allowsstudents to postpone making any changes to their diet. Several students, in their dis-cussions of their future lives, said that their diets would “naturally” get better as theygot older/left college

n his reflection, the student removes all discussion of agency when speculatingabout his future habits. He “wonders” what will happen as if he has no role to playin changing his diet. He also refers to postcollege life as a time when he has a “bigboy job,” suggesting that he still sees college as a liminal stage in which he has notyet transitioned to adulthood.

Among the students, the concept of postponement was mentioned 28 timesand represented 12.6% of the accounts within the reflection papers. Their methodof postponement often could refer to either not thinking about the quality of theirdiet (“I’m not going to let it bother me”) or admitting they were going to continueto eat in the same manner until some point in the future, often postgraduation.

Although she admits she’s not “dirt poor,” the student does not elaborate abouther financial situation. Her identification as a college student is considered enoughto convey that she has a limited budget.

His use of the collective “we” instead of the individualistic “I” suggests he viewsthe conditions he cited (busy students who skip meals and eat fast food) as universalamong college students. Other students also described how they had no choice but toeat poorly

Denials of responsibility were cited 73 times (33.0%) by the college students

It’s what we always do

A female student connected her weekend eating to the fact thatshe had gone back home and spent her time socializing with friends and family. Sheexplained that, since coming to college: “I do not get to see my friends and family asmuch as I would like to. This weekend was a rare occasion that I got to spend timewith all of them and it was wonderful.” For this student, the pleasure of spendingtime with friends and family outweighed any concerns she may have had about herfood choices

A male student recalled thinking, “Overall,my diet is what a college student’s should be. It is fast, cheap, practical.” The stu-dent acknowledged the importance of healthy eating but justified his behavior byreporting that adherence to his budget was his primary goal

In their study of college women who worked as strippers, Trautner and Collett(2010) described the common practice of “othering” in which these young womendrew sharp contrasts between themselves who were stripping for the time being andthose they perceived as “career” strippers.

The college students would also use comparisons between their choices and a worseoption (“As long as I wasn’t eating McDonald’s every day, I rationalized, I could feelalright about it”) or judged their eating habits against their friends’

As one male student explained, “I am sat-isfied with my diet because it has yet to cause problems for my body and my health. Ifthat were to change then obviously I would have to make the proper changes.

The students attempted to minimize any negative feelings about eating unhealthyfoods by denying any real injury to themselves as a result of their actions in 17 (7.7%)of the total accounts

eating poorly became a sign that they completely adopted the college stu-dent role and were socially adjusting to college life. By asserting that their behaviorswere part of taking part of an expected lifestyle, the students were able to preventlabels of “unhealthy eater” from being applied to them

Forthe students, “unhealthy” foods tended to be highly processed snacks (e.g., chipsand candy), fast food (e.g., hamburgers and pizza), and sweet foods (e.g., chocolateand ice cream). “Healthy foods” included fruits and vegetables, and students werecritical of their diets if they failed to eat these foods. Eating what was perceived astoo much (six Oreos versus two) and at the wrong time of day (late at night) wasalso heavily criticized

he gender distribution of theparticipants was very similar to course enrollment, with women composing almosttwo-thirds of the participants and males representing 33% of the participants. Themajority (53%) of the participants listed “white” as their race-ethnicity, 24% wereHispanic, and 9% were African American. Fifteen percent of the participantschose the option of “other” for the race-ethnicity question or wrote that they weremulti-racial/multi-ethnic. Slightly over 80% indicated they currently lived with aroommate or romantic partner while the remaining 20% lived alone or with parents.

The author, who was also the course instructor, asked students to documenttheir dietary behaviors for three consecutive days. Students recorded what, when,and how much they ate, as well as if they were engaging in other activities at the time(watching television, surfing the internet, etc.)

ultural expectations

In Monaghan’s (2006) research with overweight men, the partic-ipants sometimes discussed their roles as fathers, workers, or managers to accountfor why they had gained weight,

coercion (denying they had achoice in the matter), exceptions (violating a minor rule to uphold a more impor-tant one), denial (refusing to admit to any untoward acts), and concealment (hidingproof of these acts from members and the public) in order to uphold their groupidentity of food counterculturalists

justifications and excuses.

Individuals are generally aware when their conduct may be viewed negatively byothers (Hewitt and Stokes 1975), and they engage in several practices meant to pre-vent or remedy any harm that can occur as a result of their actions.

“Freshman 15”

In this context, eating the “correct” way takes on moral tones and those whoindulge in unhealthy eating, particularly if it results in being categorized “over-weight” or “obese,” are stigmatized (Biltekoff 2013; Crawford 1980, 2006; Degherand Hughes 1999; Retzinger 2012).

hedonistic exploration