EE2 Draft.

Name: Ran Wang

WRIT1133-27, MWF 12:00

Prof. Eric Leake 

05/28/12

 1195 Words

                    

                Dietary habits disorder of International students  

       Nowadays, with the rapid economic development and the improvement of people’s living standard, a growing number of people would like to study abroad when they have certain conditions. As an international student, In fact, I found it hard adjusting to life in a new country, not only myself, there is a large number of students also believe it is difficult to have the same daily life with local students - Especially in dietary habits disorder issue.

       The dietary habits disorder point out the international students who have the irregular eating habits. Actually, the international students’ irregular eating habits were formed by two reasons; firstly, we have the exactly different eating schedule with local students, and it is irregular. Also, It has the intimate relation with our daily routine. Secondly, we have the different dietary habits with the local students. Different countries have exactly different dietary habits. It is a fact that the people who are from different countries have different food culture backgrounds. Sometimes it is too hard to let us accept and infatuate with other countries food. As for me, I think there is no doubt that enough concern must be paid to the problem of international students’ irregular eating habits in both sides.

       First of all, let us talk about the international students’ irregular eating habits on different eating schedule issue. To compare with the local students, our international students eating schedule seemed more seriously at some points. In this case, let us talk about local students first. Such as the author Justin Carrington’s “Time, money affect eating habits” has some valuable ideas with local students eating schedule. In this article, the author implies some reasons of why lots of local students developed the irregular eating habits by personal communications. The most interesting part I found is that time affects their eating habits. "The major thing that prevents students from eating healthy is time," Crabtree said. As one of the interviewees, Crabtree also said “I really don't like eating breakfast, but I have to because I might not have time to eat any other time during the day until late at night." From this student’s opinion, we can see that the availability of time makes students eating irregularly. On the other hand, I did find another reason which causes lots of local students have the irregular eating habits. From a parent’s perspective, Lait said he “believes sometimes not having mom and dad around to guide what is being purchased can lead to certain unhealthy eating habits.” I think it is true; especially when students go to colleges, a new environment can change students’ dietary habits by variable ways. Besides, everyone has different dietary habits and schedule; so, when people go to college, new friends also will affect their dietary habits through different ways. But actually some food which look comfortable and tasty but is not healthy will change their tastes to unhealthy. Finally, these unhealthy dietary habits will lead their dietary habits to irregular eating habits, because sometimes they only focus on tasty food rather than nourishing food. As a result, I believe it is a truth that if parents are not around to guide which kind of food is healthy and nourishing, their dietary habits will misguided by variable ways.

       Thus, local students’ parents believe new college life will lead their kids’ dietary habit to unhealthy because they cannot be around to guide them how to eat healthily. For international students, what we face is a new country rather than a different city in the same country. Meanwhile, our parents are much further away, and there is no way for them to guide us what should we eat or not. On the other hand, the people and friends what we get along with are the foreign that have entirely different lifestyles with us, moreover in dietary part. Everyone knows that the people who are from different countries have different food culture backgrounds.

     Moreover, not just eating without proper guidance, the international students’ personal issues are also very serious. In this case, I found a research journal which is called “Changes in food neophobia and dietary habits of international students.” In this journal, it uses different research theories to show what the international student’s dietary habits are and whether they can develop new dietary habits in different countries. Specifically, the author uses the statistical analysis, demographics, procedures, data tables to analyze if a climate for positive learning is to be established, what dietary habits changes will take place in the acculturation process for international students. There is a report which studies the Asian students in the USA, suggesting that “the number of meals consumed per day decreased, with almost half of them missing breakfast more often than the other two meals, primarily because of their class timetables. (Pan et al., 1999)” So, if you continue to consider the interviewed student Crabtree, he said that he has to eat breakfast because he does not have time to eat anytime else during the day until the late at night. It is fair to say that college students have very tensive schedules during the daytime. So, for international students, we would have more stressful schedules than American students because English is the second language for us and everything is new. We have to spend more and more time on studying; otherwise, we can easily be eliminated by American colleges.

       Actually I have some of my own experiences to support this phenomenon. In this quarter, we did the three days food journals for our writing class required, after reading others’ and my own daily food journals, and our food journals showed that almost international have irregular eating habits. For example, there are so many classmates talked about they are missing breakfast every day.

(Incomplete… What I will do is, add one more personal experience to support what and how different dietary schedule affect us.  Then I want to talk maybe as time goes on, it is not hard to solve this problem because We feel more accustomed to living in the United States

.  But although we can solve this problem and change our irregular eating habits by ourselves in the future, our dietary habits is not too easy to be changed.

Next to talk about the second reason about how international students’ irregular eating habits were formed. --- We have the different dietary habits with the local students. Different countries have exactly different dietary habits. It is a fact that the people who are from different countries have different food culture backgrounds. Sometimes it is too hard to let us accept and infatuate with other countries food. ---- For this phenomenon, as all immigrants from different countries will be affected and changed by the new cultures in variable ways. As for me, I’ll have to get used to the American way of life. it is too hard to keep my original habits because cooking and diet culture for an immigrant or international student is irresistible.(Finding some resources to support my idea, such as the article Home Run etc.)