Body Image and Eating Habits at Poly
School started up again this past Wednesday, the 24 of August and I’ve already had such a fun time in the few days we have had so far. Additionally, during my short time on campus, I have already noticed some new changes at Poly. Some differences for this school year include longer lunches, an added break in the schedule, and reusable utensils and plates during lunch. I am honestly so proud and delighted to see the positive changes at Poly, especially those pertaining to solving climate change, which I am particularly interested in.
As part of a recent initiative to reduce the school’s carbon footprint, the school has debated lessening the portion size of its lunches to decrease overall food waste. While I am all for solving climate change and making positive changes at our school, I can’t help but wonder how this change might affect the students, faculty, and staff that use the Bevaris lunch service. Specifically, I believe this could be harmful to students’ eating habits as they might not get enough food. Also, socially, this change can make students think that they eat too much if they are still hungry after finishing their food. So, how can Poly balance trying to make the community more eco-friendly, while avoiding causing more problems in the process?
To start, a Paw Print article, our school’s student-run newspaper, from this March researched eating habits in the upper school. The article pointed out a problem with the eating culture and body image at Poly, then urged the school to address the problem. Specifically, the Paw Print conducted a survey of the high school students at our school and found that about 9% of students eat only one meal a day, 33% eat 2 meals a day, and a few eat less than 1 meal a day. This is extremely concerning! But I’m also not sure how much control the school has over how much the students eat, so I think their solutions should be focused more on how they contribute to the culture of eating disorders.
First, the school has to reflect on what the culture actually is. Personally, I’ve noticed several other issues in the community that contribute to a toxic eating and body image culture, one of which is Fun Food Friday. Every Friday, a different class cabinet hosts “Fun Food Friday” where they sell food from a local restaurant to increase class funds. They are notorious for selling small portions to make more money, but this could be reducing how much kids eat and contribute to possible eating disorders. Additionally, on picture day, the service our school uses to take our photos applies filters and edits our photos to have smooth and sometimes lighter skin. They also likely alter our eyes, which creates an unrealistic beauty standard and disingenuous portrayal of people. Furthermore, the edited version of the photos is based on a eurocentric ideal of beauty, which also has racial implications. Finally, throughout the classrooms and various spaces on campus, there are posters that depict people like anatomical posters in biology classes or diagrams in the trainer’s office. All the posters on campus only show people with a very specific body type. By only seeing one type of body, people might believe they are “too fat” or “skinny” if they don’t look the same.
At Poly, Bevaris provides lunch and snacks throughout the day. Additionally, there are always free snacks like cereal or goldfish in the main building in the high school. I think food is readily available to the students, but I also know a lot of people complain about the quality of the Bevaris food in particular. A lot of my friends will just skip lunch if it is a food they know they don’t like. I think this is problematic because kids are skipping important fuel for their education and well-being.
These small aspects of our school all contribute to an unhealthy eating and body image culture at Poly, but where I see the largest shortcoming is in our education of eating habits and body image. I’ve been at my school since kindergarten and am about to enter my last here as a senior. In other words, I’ve been at Poly for 13 years and have not once been taught about body image or eating disorders. In the high school, there is a club that talks about body image and eating disorders, but they have closed meetings and it is a completely student-run club that was started because students felt the school lacked education on body image and eating disorders. The club is small and has closed meetings so if you are not in the club, you likely won’t hear anything about body image or eating disorders on campus. I also believe that the school should address body image and eating disorders in human development because I think that it would help kids feel more open to talking about their struggles with body image and eating disorders and help educate those who do not experience body image and eating disorders firsthand.