Interview #1

The first student lived in a house and had to prepare most of her own meals. I asked her to describe what she felt was a healthy or well-balanced meal. She stated that the Food Plate is what should be followed which contains lots of vegetables, fruit, and carbs. She also stated that she believed most meals should be healthy but it is okay to have a meal where you splurge and so not eat healthy. When asked if she thought preparing and eating healthy meals is important she described how it is important but it is hard to do. She said for one thing she doesn't always like to make sure she has enough of each food group each meal and that while in college it is hard to find time to make healthy balanced meals.

Timing seems to be an important problem for eating well. When asked how often she eats a well-balanced meal based on her definition, she stated she believes only about once a month is how often she eats a well-balanced meal. When asked why she thought this was, she stated that she does not take the time to put together a healthy meal. One of the challenges she identified to eating meals was also that it requires time to make the meals and put it all together and that other things were seen as a more important priority. This seems to be similar to the culture of food in America. We have fast food restaurants, easy and fast TV dinners and working through lunch so that people can get more work done. People do not always take the time to sit and relax and eat or take the time to prepare healthy meals. While this is not always a daily occurrence, there are students who do not see eating healthy as a priority but rather something to be done if there is time to do so.

When asked what kind of activities might affect eating habits and make it so she does not eat healthy meals, she identified school and nighttime meetings being the biggest activities that can affect her eating patterns. She noted that for meetings she would have to push back diner which could lead to her eating smaller meals. She did not skip meals in order to go to these activities but it could affect the portions of her meals and also created less time for her to make meals. The amount of time and having other things as a priority was mostly the challenge to eat well for this student. She felt that she knew enough about nutrition to know what was healthy and what the right proportions should be, and knew how food affects the body. Education was not the main problem although she did admit that she did not know enough to greatly diversify the types of food she ate in order to have a healthy meal. Most of her healthy meals would be very similar. When asked what helped to motivate her eating decisions she said that she tried to eat healthy, and to eat to control her weight but what often wins out is eating things that she loves. This can sometimes mean healthy foods but also the meals may not be well-balanced.

For this student, taking the time out her busy schedule is often a problem in trying to eat healthy. While some more education could be used in order to help her diversify her healthy eating choices, the greatest challenge she sees is finding time to prepare these meals and actively making sure she has the right proportions of different food groups.