The place to be?
The local gas station.
We'd go there everyday to stock up on Hot Pockets, Coke, Ruffles, and dip.
Our mission, and we chose to accept it, was to see who could eat the most junk without barfing.
(I usually won, just for the record, though I've had to occasionally sprint to the jumbo trashcan).
We thought "who cares? we won't get fat, we're young and have high metabolisms."
While we did start this as a game in celebration of our new life as high school students, as almost-adults, it resulted in some serious consequences. Not only did we abuse our developing bodies with vast amounts of sugar, salt, preservatives and carcinogens, but my friends and I also developed eating disorders from these poor eating habits. I admit that social pressures had driven me already to anorexia in middle school, but I never would have considered Bulimia until I had this experience.
My education did not properly share with me the darker side of diet. We learned about the colorful Food Guide Pyramid, but not about the psychological side of diet. We learned that we should not eat too much junk food, but not the true consequences of ignoring that advice. (Think about it - you tell a kid "don't open the cookie jar," what are they going to do the instant you turn your back? Eat a cookie.) And eating disorders, while running unchecked throughout the school district, were treated as something that happens to Others. How can you identify an illness if you don't believe you could have it?
Lack of education + poor dietary options = a life-long struggle against a disorder that was preventable.
~Carolyn
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