FOOD/HEALTH/ MIGRATION
Interviewee: 22 year old female, Lehman College student, "H"
Duration: ~33 minutes
Location: Lehman College campus
Maria (M): What's your age?
H: I'm 22 years old.
M: What's your gender, what are your pronouns?
H: I'm female, she her.
M: What is your racial or ethnic background?
H: My racial background I am black my ethnic background I am Puerto Rican and from the West.
M: Okay, where were you born?
H: I was born in Manhattan.
M: Okay, do you strongly identify with your roots why or why not?
H: Yes, because knowing especially where your parents come from especially as a child of immigrants who parents one of my what am i from my mom was born here but my dad was not born here it's really important to understand where your parents come from and understand that culture because that culture is what you will pass down to the future generations so I do strongly try to push myself to accompany them and understand them in their culture.
M: Do you feel a close connection to your homeland and [your] homeland can be like New York?
H: I feel I would say what I call home I would call technically New York City because this is somewhere that I have grown up around I went to school all my life here I now go to college here it's just being a New Yorker is a very big part of my identity. I would say where my parents are from I don't necessarily call them home but I do take their culture [as] something really important to me, but I would say my home is New York.
M: Okay, do you have any family living or your parents are from?
H: Yes okay basically my mom's sister, my grandpa, they all are in Puerto Rico, my dad all of his brothers and sisters and their kids so my cousins and my great aunts so my dad's aunts they all live in Antigua [which is] still nice.
M: What is your college enrollment status?
H: I'm currently a senior going to graduate in two months.
M: What is your occupation slash job?
H: I'm currently a student that's my biggest I guess occupation but I also am a tutor at the office.
M: How many hours a week do you work?
H: I work 15 hours a week.
M: Okay do you plan to stick with the same occupation, why or why not?
H: No, because this opportunity is mostly for current students and so basically I will train the next undergrad student to take on this job and then I would go on after I graduate to possibly teach or become an adjunct or things like that.
M: Okay, how stressful is your occupation from a scale of one to five one being barely and five being extremely stressful.
H: I would say it's a four because what's interesting about my job here is that not only are we kind of helping kids apply, and you help with their essays and getting all that accentuated, we're also kind of setting the groundwork of what this program is going to expand into so basically my job is like the first how I call it a testing period or I don't know the correct term, yeah like the beta, so they're wanting to expand it so we're like not only just working with your students but also pioneering the program [and] getting the program organized. In terms of the... work behind it and all of that, so, I would say it is pretty it's more stressful than I guess it's your typical tutoring job but also it's not something that's so stressful that I feel like it's affecting my daily life.
M: Do you have a lunch break?
H: Yes.
M: Okay are you able to eat snacks, take breaks?
H: It's nice, luckily I'm in a position where this office does provide snacks for students and also for us when we are hungry and need kind of that energy boost but it's not like it's accessible food... snacks are not in the budget so a lot of the times when there's snacks in this office we have to provide it ourselves [with our] own money.
M: Okay, does your like job here interfere with your regular eating schedule?
H: I wouldn't say this job particularly affects my eating schedule I just think being a college student with a schedule in general because... so, a good example is on Mondays I'm in class from 10:00 to 10:00 with only one hour break at 5:00 and so most of the time what happens is I end up eating, or trying to eat, breakfast before I get here and then I don't eat until 5:00 and then that's only an hour for my next class. So most of the time I'm just trying to grab a quick something anything... before I got a class and that I won't get home to like ten and so at that time I'm either forcing myself to eat because I need to eat or the next day I'm gonna have hunger pains or I just fall asleep because I don't have any more energy to eat so I am eating maybe one meal a day and a bunch of snacks or junk food or something to hold me over.
M: What is your current civil status?
H: I'm a US citizen.
M: What about your family's?
H: Yes, everybody's a-- well not everybody, my immediate family yes.
M: So, your father is a naturalized citizen?
H: Yes.
M: Okay, have you migrated [and] if so where to, from? A migration can be anything, like going from coast to coast to traveling abroad.
H: Oh well done I've done a lot of that. So, I currently do not live in the Bronx anymore. My parents moved to Tuckahoe, New York when I was 16 years old so that's a migration in itself to Westchester from New York City. I've also traveled abroad too: I've been to China, I've been to Cuba, I've traveled all over the United States, I've been to California... I also commute to school every day from Tuckahoe for the classes.
M: What sort of feelings did or do you encounter before after or during migration so like stress, fatigue, relief, happiness?
H: So, for example when I feel like when I traveled to California, being that it was in the US I was really excited to go. There is a stressful aspect of it which is like figuring out where you're gonna live [and] all that kind of planning, the logistic planning, but I don't think that was as stressful as when I went to China. For example, because the visa process was really stressful for me, I had to go to the consulate five times before I got my visa, so those experiences to me are way more stressful than like the typical you know coming to school, but there is a form of stress that does come from migration which is like uncertainty I think... You don't know what's gonna happen, you know how you get there you don't know if everything's gonna go right according to plan so...
M: So I mean you answered this before but do you commute and how do you commute?
H: I use public reputation so I either take the Westchester bee-line bus or I take the Metronorth.
M: Okay at what time like in the mornings, during rush hour, night?
H: I commute very early in the morning and also late at night for most of my classes and also because of work here I have to be here at 10 o'clock in the morning every day so I have to leave my house by 7:40 to get here for 10 o'clock or to get here by like 9:30... The public transportation system in Westchester, especially when you leave to New York City, is really uncertain... so I tend to stay on campus as long as possible and then I'll go back home.
M: Okay and what time do you leave?
H: 10 o'clock, yeah it usually 8 to 10.
M: Okay do you eat on your commute?
H: No, oh well I guess yes. Coming to school usually because I didn't sleep maybe enough I wake up late and I have to rush, even this morning I wrapped two pieces of bread that my dad made 'cuz my dad makes bread... and I'm walking to the bus, I'm just eating bread, because I live about a 15-minute walk from the so I live it in the suburbs and then I have to walk to the village to catch it to a bus out yeah so I'm usually on that walk I'm eating food, my breakfast.
M: Do you like or dislike eating on your commute?
H: I feel like I don't know I don't really have a feeling about it because to me I guess some people even though some people feel weird about walking and eating I think that's something I just do. Yeah, because I'm used to it so even on campus I'll like if there's like a lab like thirty minutes where I get to go run and grab food I'll like run to the halal truck grab food walk and eat and by the time I get to Davis I'm done and then I can go back so like that's just how I am because of my lifestyle as a chemist and also in general.
M: Okay, what foods do you like or dislike?
H: I don't really necessarily feel like I dislike food. I guess the only food I would say I dislike is eggplant, but I have dietary restrictions because of like allergies and other things...
M: What's your culture's cuisine like?
H: My culture's cuisine yeah I would say both my parents are typically from the Caribbean, so even though they're called different names they're the same type of food in my opinion. There's a lot of carbs we're eating a lot of rice and beans there's a lot of meat involved there's lot of vegetables like steamed vegetables or just cooked vegetables [with] a lot of seasoning a lot of salt and pepper and other spices are being used. Sometimes it could be spicy... but it's very flavorful I feel like to me it's very not hearty, but like a lot of food [are] just carbs and meat and vegetables and it's very filling food.
M: Do you cook, if so do you cook your culture's cuisine on a frequent basis?
H: I do cook food I think I cook like yeah I'd say. My culture's food... if I was cooking like oxtails and rice and peas I cook that yeah but I also feel like... to cook salmon I don't think cooking salmon I don't think there's any specific cultural way you're cooking salmon, you just cook salmon, so I guess I cook but I also cook like just a variety of food but then I also cook sometimes to what I'm in the mood for.
M: Yeah, in your experience does financial security affect how you make food choices?
H: Yes, very much because the best food, the best quality of food you have to spend so much money for, and not everybody can just afford to eat the best food for example if you let's say you come where I used to live in Wakefield in the Bronx in the Uptown when you walk around LSA to go to this food store you see like all the food is like very processed it's very there's a lot more there's a lot more fast-food chains than there are supermarkets and then in order for my parents in order for them to get quality food they would have to drive to Pelham or into Westchester to go to like a Costco's or like a Jay's or like a Sam's Club. You know, food places where the food quality is a little bit better, and even then let's say you wanted like organic food from like a farmers market you have to essentially leave the Bronx. In my experience of where I grew up, there was no food markets. When I moved to Tuckahoe that's when I saw my first farmers market, in the village they have the farmers market every Sunday so it's kind of like if you're not growing your own vegetables because my grandma Sheila still lives in Westchester, so she grows her own tomatoes, so if you're not growing your own food or if you can't even do that you are forced financially to like buy whatever is available and it might not be the best quality.
M: I see. How about your family's food choices?
H: I think I feel like my mom she definitely has took on initiative to eat a lot healthier yeah so at my house our diet includes a lot she's personally making the choice to not eat carbs I still eat carbs in my diet because I need all that energy to get to where I'm going, but we do eat a lot more vegetables and all that but in general I think my family's choices are okay because
financially they're a lot better than than others so.
M: Do you worry about running out of food?
H: I don't know I've never actually worried about running out of food and I think that's a big privilege itself.
M: Do you consider your diet to be balanced nutritionally?
H: I feel like I feel no because of my lifestyle. Being a college student commuting every day here till 10:00 p.m. and like I feel like when I eat I do tend to eat a lot of carbs because carbs give me the energy that I will need to wake up in the morning to get to school on time and getting work done so I do feel like I tend to eat a lot more carbs, and then I see a lot more carbs in general I feel I don't need it in the form of like pizza, it's in the form of like I mean more rice a lot of pasta.
M: Yeah.
H: And I also feel like I eat a lot of green vegetables and red meat because of my dietary restrictions and medical health restrictions. I eat a lot I'm so since I'm iron deficient I need to eat a lot more red meat.
M: Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you have to cut the size of or skip meals?
H: No, well, I guess.
M: Okay what is your definition of health?
H: My definition of health is something sort of like a full-body experience and not even just the body but yeah I would say it's a trifecta of body mind and motion like soul I say like it's like that because there are things that can affect you physically there are things that can affect you mentally and those things are good... and I think those are all those all needs to be addressed and you need to work on all three of those things in order to be a healthy person because you can be physically healthy but you can which you would not be mentally, so I think health is like a very three-way thing. You need to make sure every section of yourself is healthy whether it be your physical being, your mental being, or your emotional being.
M: Well you mentioned before but like do you have allergies and tolerances or health issues?
H: Yeah I have a deficiency, anemia. I am allergic to fungi so... I can't drink lactose free milk but there is some chemical use in dairy products I cannot take or I will get sick so I don't have dairy.
M: How would you rate your overall health, 1 being poor and 5 being excellent?
H: I would say it's a five because the reason why I say it's a five is even though like I have all these things, I don't think these things stop me from doing my daily life. I just need to monitor it properly. Physically I don't think anything's wrong with me, mentally I feel like I'm good because I've taken the time to understand that mental health and emotional health is something that's really important.
M: Yeah.
H: So I feel like I feel like maybe it's at four to a five. I feel like I have a really good grasp on my health, it's really good like I'm happy with where I am in terms of like my body type all other stuff, I feel great I'm able to move. I can run as fast as I want to there's no issue with that so I just generally feel overall yeah so between a four to five like I feel like it's a nice 4.6 or something.
M: Okay how would others rate your overall health like your doctor your family and your friends?
H: Oh I would definitely say they would rate it pretty high like because I play a lot of sports so physically if people were to see me there's like oh she's like incredibly fit or whatever yeah but I also feel like a lot of people even mentally and things like that they see me as like a positive person and then like I help uplift others yeah.
M: You answered this already, do you have any current or past health problems?
H: Oh, I mean like...
M: It could also refer to mental health, it could be like...
H: I mean I got stitches one time this is so sad I got stitches before but usually I have a hard time giving or donate, I can't donate blood actually because my hemoglobin levels are low but that's also because the anemia thing. Yeah I sprained my ankle quite a bit I mean I haven't done swimming in a long time but I used to sprain my ankle a lot.
M: Okay what do your doctors say like do they focus more in the physical or more on the physical or mental components of your health?
H: They just read the chart they read the numbers of like what's going on my body and they'll tell you things like oh you're overweight oh you're underweight oh you're doing fine like my doctor's my last one what's the doctor they told me like I met I'm like you know the BMI and they were like oh you're good you’re not overweight or anything, oh that's cute thanks and they will tell me like my hemoglobin levels are low but that's the usual.
M: Okay do you think your food choices affect your health problems in a positive or negative way or both?
H: I feel like it's a very neutral. I feel like, so let's say my food choices. Well, I feel like to combat certain ailments or things that's happened to me I've changed my diet and it's been helpful, but I also feel like because of the school life you can't. It's not the perfect... yeah like I dream to eat all the greens and read me as I can and you know have get my iron levels up but because of school it's really hard to let make that dream a reality and so I just force to eat whatever I can to sustain myself so it I would say definitely it's a positive a negative thing but I also feel like it depends on your situation and where you are in your life because college students have a hard time it's really hard to just plan out ideally a meal plan because we're so busy taking classes, we probably have jobs, we have other things we have to do when we're just running around. It's not really as a matter of oh I want to eat that so I want to eat that, it's a matter of okay I can only eat that so we're gonna eat that and then figure something out.
M: I have like two more questions left. What is your perspective of Western idealizations and values regarding body image?
H: Well I think it's horrible. Actually it was really interesting [what] I saw, I was watching a video and it was this woman talking about how unrealistic the body standard is because it's either supermodel thin or this idea that you need to have the thinnest waist with the biggest hips and the biggest butt and those are very unhealthy, not unhealthy aspirations because [some] people are naturally shaped that way, but... people do so much harm to their bodies in order to attain that position. I would consider myself on the thicker side but that's because I have muscles but I'm not the ideal thick type because my waist isn't so skinny and then it's a matter of oh like should I force wear a waist trainer and kind of squish my organs together so I can have a thinner waist, because that's just gonna harm my body and that goes for anybody, even people who want to achieve this not being supermodel thin and then they have to go to a unhealthy weight. I feel like the standard just kind of really bad at right now to women.
M: Yeah.
H: I mean they can do whatever they want but they're injecting silicone or all these other unnatural things into their bodies in order to achieve this look and it's just not good.
M: What about your family's perspective?
H: My family's perspective I think it depends on the generation so like my mother her ideal body type is like very thin and so for me she looks at me and she calls me fat all the time, but I don't look at that. When I was younger it used to affect me but now I know like the doctor is telling me how I'm a healthy weight, my BMI is healthy... I think even then you can go to the doctor and there's women all the time, they're so muscular... they're not fat, and I feel like it's because my mom just has a misconception of what is considered what is healthy what is fat what is this and her idea of healthy is what's on a scale. My idea of what healthy is is not on a scale, it's how your body is and how your mind is. I would say in my family it is kind of different but I think it's a generational thing.
M: This is the last question, but has the Western cultural emphasis on thinness, dieting or exercise have clashed with your culture's ideals of beauty and health?
H: That's an interesting question. I would say yes and no. So I feel like Western culture's emphasis on like having to go to the gym every day and having to be this thin cut having the certain body type...
M: Yeah.
H: It's kind of weird because it goes against like just historically what so I'm just talking on my experience as a black woman but genetically what we're made of, like, genetically black women have wider hips, but that's because of our ancestors and how they had to adapt to the climate that they were in. It's just it's Darwinism and it's fine it's like you have your body changes to acclimate to the climate.
M: Yeah.
H: So, I think of it like this like scientifically. I feel like your body is one way because of a reason, it's not that should be a bad thing. So if you are wider than your typical person, it's not something that should be looked at as a negative thing but because [of] our societies you need to be like cut in out and thin, but also round. It does affect the mental state, emotional state of a lot of women. This is something that comes off of any other race other than just black women, like so many people from their culture is saying, okay this is the look of beauty and you may not fit that and then that's a negative thing and then on top of that this is the Western standard of what's beautiful and you're not even that and then that just is like bam bam and that does mentally and emotionally weigh on people.
M: Yeah.
H: So as a whole I would say yes because I feel like... I would say no as well because I feel like my mom's standards or my parents' standards are not based off their culture but it's also based off of Western society because they've been here for so long... so what my dad and my mom, my mom's been here all her life and my dad he's been here for more than a few years like what almost 30-something years, they're damn pretty adapted to the Western mindset of what beauty is, and so when I look at me they're not looking at it as you know people from my country look like this people from where I'm from look like this which is similar to what I look like, but people here in America don't look like that and that's a problem. So I would say it really depends on your family and how long they've really been in the Western society... technically my parents are both from Western countries but yeah specifically in America like there is a standard of what is beauty and then if your parents live there all their lives, it does become second nature to them, and then that's what they're trying to pass. They're gonna pass onto the next generation, even though culturally that's not right. That's just how it is, that's how I view it so.
M: Thank you.
Duration: ~33 minutes
Location: Lehman College campus
Maria (M): What's your age?
H: I'm 22 years old.
M: What's your gender, what are your pronouns?
H: I'm female, she her.
M: What is your racial or ethnic background?
H: My racial background I am black my ethnic background I am Puerto Rican and from the West.
M: Okay, where were you born?
H: I was born in Manhattan.
M: Okay, do you strongly identify with your roots why or why not?
H: Yes, because knowing especially where your parents come from especially as a child of immigrants who parents one of my what am i from my mom was born here but my dad was not born here it's really important to understand where your parents come from and understand that culture because that culture is what you will pass down to the future generations so I do strongly try to push myself to accompany them and understand them in their culture.
M: Do you feel a close connection to your homeland and [your] homeland can be like New York?
H: I feel I would say what I call home I would call technically New York City because this is somewhere that I have grown up around I went to school all my life here I now go to college here it's just being a New Yorker is a very big part of my identity. I would say where my parents are from I don't necessarily call them home but I do take their culture [as] something really important to me, but I would say my home is New York.
M: Okay, do you have any family living or your parents are from?
H: Yes okay basically my mom's sister, my grandpa, they all are in Puerto Rico, my dad all of his brothers and sisters and their kids so my cousins and my great aunts so my dad's aunts they all live in Antigua [which is] still nice.
M: What is your college enrollment status?
H: I'm currently a senior going to graduate in two months.
M: What is your occupation slash job?
H: I'm currently a student that's my biggest I guess occupation but I also am a tutor at the office.
M: How many hours a week do you work?
H: I work 15 hours a week.
M: Okay do you plan to stick with the same occupation, why or why not?
H: No, because this opportunity is mostly for current students and so basically I will train the next undergrad student to take on this job and then I would go on after I graduate to possibly teach or become an adjunct or things like that.
M: Okay, how stressful is your occupation from a scale of one to five one being barely and five being extremely stressful.
H: I would say it's a four because what's interesting about my job here is that not only are we kind of helping kids apply, and you help with their essays and getting all that accentuated, we're also kind of setting the groundwork of what this program is going to expand into so basically my job is like the first how I call it a testing period or I don't know the correct term, yeah like the beta, so they're wanting to expand it so we're like not only just working with your students but also pioneering the program [and] getting the program organized. In terms of the... work behind it and all of that, so, I would say it is pretty it's more stressful than I guess it's your typical tutoring job but also it's not something that's so stressful that I feel like it's affecting my daily life.
M: Do you have a lunch break?
H: Yes.
M: Okay are you able to eat snacks, take breaks?
H: It's nice, luckily I'm in a position where this office does provide snacks for students and also for us when we are hungry and need kind of that energy boost but it's not like it's accessible food... snacks are not in the budget so a lot of the times when there's snacks in this office we have to provide it ourselves [with our] own money.
M: Okay, does your like job here interfere with your regular eating schedule?
H: I wouldn't say this job particularly affects my eating schedule I just think being a college student with a schedule in general because... so, a good example is on Mondays I'm in class from 10:00 to 10:00 with only one hour break at 5:00 and so most of the time what happens is I end up eating, or trying to eat, breakfast before I get here and then I don't eat until 5:00 and then that's only an hour for my next class. So most of the time I'm just trying to grab a quick something anything... before I got a class and that I won't get home to like ten and so at that time I'm either forcing myself to eat because I need to eat or the next day I'm gonna have hunger pains or I just fall asleep because I don't have any more energy to eat so I am eating maybe one meal a day and a bunch of snacks or junk food or something to hold me over.
M: What is your current civil status?
H: I'm a US citizen.
M: What about your family's?
H: Yes, everybody's a-- well not everybody, my immediate family yes.
M: So, your father is a naturalized citizen?
H: Yes.
M: Okay, have you migrated [and] if so where to, from? A migration can be anything, like going from coast to coast to traveling abroad.
H: Oh well done I've done a lot of that. So, I currently do not live in the Bronx anymore. My parents moved to Tuckahoe, New York when I was 16 years old so that's a migration in itself to Westchester from New York City. I've also traveled abroad too: I've been to China, I've been to Cuba, I've traveled all over the United States, I've been to California... I also commute to school every day from Tuckahoe for the classes.
M: What sort of feelings did or do you encounter before after or during migration so like stress, fatigue, relief, happiness?
H: So, for example when I feel like when I traveled to California, being that it was in the US I was really excited to go. There is a stressful aspect of it which is like figuring out where you're gonna live [and] all that kind of planning, the logistic planning, but I don't think that was as stressful as when I went to China. For example, because the visa process was really stressful for me, I had to go to the consulate five times before I got my visa, so those experiences to me are way more stressful than like the typical you know coming to school, but there is a form of stress that does come from migration which is like uncertainty I think... You don't know what's gonna happen, you know how you get there you don't know if everything's gonna go right according to plan so...
M: So I mean you answered this before but do you commute and how do you commute?
H: I use public reputation so I either take the Westchester bee-line bus or I take the Metronorth.
M: Okay at what time like in the mornings, during rush hour, night?
H: I commute very early in the morning and also late at night for most of my classes and also because of work here I have to be here at 10 o'clock in the morning every day so I have to leave my house by 7:40 to get here for 10 o'clock or to get here by like 9:30... The public transportation system in Westchester, especially when you leave to New York City, is really uncertain... so I tend to stay on campus as long as possible and then I'll go back home.
M: Okay and what time do you leave?
H: 10 o'clock, yeah it usually 8 to 10.
M: Okay do you eat on your commute?
H: No, oh well I guess yes. Coming to school usually because I didn't sleep maybe enough I wake up late and I have to rush, even this morning I wrapped two pieces of bread that my dad made 'cuz my dad makes bread... and I'm walking to the bus, I'm just eating bread, because I live about a 15-minute walk from the so I live it in the suburbs and then I have to walk to the village to catch it to a bus out yeah so I'm usually on that walk I'm eating food, my breakfast.
M: Do you like or dislike eating on your commute?
H: I feel like I don't know I don't really have a feeling about it because to me I guess some people even though some people feel weird about walking and eating I think that's something I just do. Yeah, because I'm used to it so even on campus I'll like if there's like a lab like thirty minutes where I get to go run and grab food I'll like run to the halal truck grab food walk and eat and by the time I get to Davis I'm done and then I can go back so like that's just how I am because of my lifestyle as a chemist and also in general.
M: Okay, what foods do you like or dislike?
H: I don't really necessarily feel like I dislike food. I guess the only food I would say I dislike is eggplant, but I have dietary restrictions because of like allergies and other things...
M: What's your culture's cuisine like?
H: My culture's cuisine yeah I would say both my parents are typically from the Caribbean, so even though they're called different names they're the same type of food in my opinion. There's a lot of carbs we're eating a lot of rice and beans there's a lot of meat involved there's lot of vegetables like steamed vegetables or just cooked vegetables [with] a lot of seasoning a lot of salt and pepper and other spices are being used. Sometimes it could be spicy... but it's very flavorful I feel like to me it's very not hearty, but like a lot of food [are] just carbs and meat and vegetables and it's very filling food.
M: Do you cook, if so do you cook your culture's cuisine on a frequent basis?
H: I do cook food I think I cook like yeah I'd say. My culture's food... if I was cooking like oxtails and rice and peas I cook that yeah but I also feel like... to cook salmon I don't think cooking salmon I don't think there's any specific cultural way you're cooking salmon, you just cook salmon, so I guess I cook but I also cook like just a variety of food but then I also cook sometimes to what I'm in the mood for.
M: Yeah, in your experience does financial security affect how you make food choices?
H: Yes, very much because the best food, the best quality of food you have to spend so much money for, and not everybody can just afford to eat the best food for example if you let's say you come where I used to live in Wakefield in the Bronx in the Uptown when you walk around LSA to go to this food store you see like all the food is like very processed it's very there's a lot more there's a lot more fast-food chains than there are supermarkets and then in order for my parents in order for them to get quality food they would have to drive to Pelham or into Westchester to go to like a Costco's or like a Jay's or like a Sam's Club. You know, food places where the food quality is a little bit better, and even then let's say you wanted like organic food from like a farmers market you have to essentially leave the Bronx. In my experience of where I grew up, there was no food markets. When I moved to Tuckahoe that's when I saw my first farmers market, in the village they have the farmers market every Sunday so it's kind of like if you're not growing your own vegetables because my grandma Sheila still lives in Westchester, so she grows her own tomatoes, so if you're not growing your own food or if you can't even do that you are forced financially to like buy whatever is available and it might not be the best quality.
M: I see. How about your family's food choices?
H: I think I feel like my mom she definitely has took on initiative to eat a lot healthier yeah so at my house our diet includes a lot she's personally making the choice to not eat carbs I still eat carbs in my diet because I need all that energy to get to where I'm going, but we do eat a lot more vegetables and all that but in general I think my family's choices are okay because
financially they're a lot better than than others so.
M: Do you worry about running out of food?
H: I don't know I've never actually worried about running out of food and I think that's a big privilege itself.
M: Do you consider your diet to be balanced nutritionally?
H: I feel like I feel no because of my lifestyle. Being a college student commuting every day here till 10:00 p.m. and like I feel like when I eat I do tend to eat a lot of carbs because carbs give me the energy that I will need to wake up in the morning to get to school on time and getting work done so I do feel like I tend to eat a lot more carbs, and then I see a lot more carbs in general I feel I don't need it in the form of like pizza, it's in the form of like I mean more rice a lot of pasta.
M: Yeah.
H: And I also feel like I eat a lot of green vegetables and red meat because of my dietary restrictions and medical health restrictions. I eat a lot I'm so since I'm iron deficient I need to eat a lot more red meat.
M: Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you have to cut the size of or skip meals?
H: No, well, I guess.
M: Okay what is your definition of health?
H: My definition of health is something sort of like a full-body experience and not even just the body but yeah I would say it's a trifecta of body mind and motion like soul I say like it's like that because there are things that can affect you physically there are things that can affect you mentally and those things are good... and I think those are all those all needs to be addressed and you need to work on all three of those things in order to be a healthy person because you can be physically healthy but you can which you would not be mentally, so I think health is like a very three-way thing. You need to make sure every section of yourself is healthy whether it be your physical being, your mental being, or your emotional being.
M: Well you mentioned before but like do you have allergies and tolerances or health issues?
H: Yeah I have a deficiency, anemia. I am allergic to fungi so... I can't drink lactose free milk but there is some chemical use in dairy products I cannot take or I will get sick so I don't have dairy.
M: How would you rate your overall health, 1 being poor and 5 being excellent?
H: I would say it's a five because the reason why I say it's a five is even though like I have all these things, I don't think these things stop me from doing my daily life. I just need to monitor it properly. Physically I don't think anything's wrong with me, mentally I feel like I'm good because I've taken the time to understand that mental health and emotional health is something that's really important.
M: Yeah.
H: So I feel like I feel like maybe it's at four to a five. I feel like I have a really good grasp on my health, it's really good like I'm happy with where I am in terms of like my body type all other stuff, I feel great I'm able to move. I can run as fast as I want to there's no issue with that so I just generally feel overall yeah so between a four to five like I feel like it's a nice 4.6 or something.
M: Okay how would others rate your overall health like your doctor your family and your friends?
H: Oh I would definitely say they would rate it pretty high like because I play a lot of sports so physically if people were to see me there's like oh she's like incredibly fit or whatever yeah but I also feel like a lot of people even mentally and things like that they see me as like a positive person and then like I help uplift others yeah.
M: You answered this already, do you have any current or past health problems?
H: Oh, I mean like...
M: It could also refer to mental health, it could be like...
H: I mean I got stitches one time this is so sad I got stitches before but usually I have a hard time giving or donate, I can't donate blood actually because my hemoglobin levels are low but that's also because the anemia thing. Yeah I sprained my ankle quite a bit I mean I haven't done swimming in a long time but I used to sprain my ankle a lot.
M: Okay what do your doctors say like do they focus more in the physical or more on the physical or mental components of your health?
H: They just read the chart they read the numbers of like what's going on my body and they'll tell you things like oh you're overweight oh you're underweight oh you're doing fine like my doctor's my last one what's the doctor they told me like I met I'm like you know the BMI and they were like oh you're good you’re not overweight or anything, oh that's cute thanks and they will tell me like my hemoglobin levels are low but that's the usual.
M: Okay do you think your food choices affect your health problems in a positive or negative way or both?
H: I feel like it's a very neutral. I feel like, so let's say my food choices. Well, I feel like to combat certain ailments or things that's happened to me I've changed my diet and it's been helpful, but I also feel like because of the school life you can't. It's not the perfect... yeah like I dream to eat all the greens and read me as I can and you know have get my iron levels up but because of school it's really hard to let make that dream a reality and so I just force to eat whatever I can to sustain myself so it I would say definitely it's a positive a negative thing but I also feel like it depends on your situation and where you are in your life because college students have a hard time it's really hard to just plan out ideally a meal plan because we're so busy taking classes, we probably have jobs, we have other things we have to do when we're just running around. It's not really as a matter of oh I want to eat that so I want to eat that, it's a matter of okay I can only eat that so we're gonna eat that and then figure something out.
M: I have like two more questions left. What is your perspective of Western idealizations and values regarding body image?
H: Well I think it's horrible. Actually it was really interesting [what] I saw, I was watching a video and it was this woman talking about how unrealistic the body standard is because it's either supermodel thin or this idea that you need to have the thinnest waist with the biggest hips and the biggest butt and those are very unhealthy, not unhealthy aspirations because [some] people are naturally shaped that way, but... people do so much harm to their bodies in order to attain that position. I would consider myself on the thicker side but that's because I have muscles but I'm not the ideal thick type because my waist isn't so skinny and then it's a matter of oh like should I force wear a waist trainer and kind of squish my organs together so I can have a thinner waist, because that's just gonna harm my body and that goes for anybody, even people who want to achieve this not being supermodel thin and then they have to go to a unhealthy weight. I feel like the standard just kind of really bad at right now to women.
M: Yeah.
H: I mean they can do whatever they want but they're injecting silicone or all these other unnatural things into their bodies in order to achieve this look and it's just not good.
M: What about your family's perspective?
H: My family's perspective I think it depends on the generation so like my mother her ideal body type is like very thin and so for me she looks at me and she calls me fat all the time, but I don't look at that. When I was younger it used to affect me but now I know like the doctor is telling me how I'm a healthy weight, my BMI is healthy... I think even then you can go to the doctor and there's women all the time, they're so muscular... they're not fat, and I feel like it's because my mom just has a misconception of what is considered what is healthy what is fat what is this and her idea of healthy is what's on a scale. My idea of what healthy is is not on a scale, it's how your body is and how your mind is. I would say in my family it is kind of different but I think it's a generational thing.
M: This is the last question, but has the Western cultural emphasis on thinness, dieting or exercise have clashed with your culture's ideals of beauty and health?
H: That's an interesting question. I would say yes and no. So I feel like Western culture's emphasis on like having to go to the gym every day and having to be this thin cut having the certain body type...
M: Yeah.
H: It's kind of weird because it goes against like just historically what so I'm just talking on my experience as a black woman but genetically what we're made of, like, genetically black women have wider hips, but that's because of our ancestors and how they had to adapt to the climate that they were in. It's just it's Darwinism and it's fine it's like you have your body changes to acclimate to the climate.
M: Yeah.
H: So, I think of it like this like scientifically. I feel like your body is one way because of a reason, it's not that should be a bad thing. So if you are wider than your typical person, it's not something that should be looked at as a negative thing but because [of] our societies you need to be like cut in out and thin, but also round. It does affect the mental state, emotional state of a lot of women. This is something that comes off of any other race other than just black women, like so many people from their culture is saying, okay this is the look of beauty and you may not fit that and then that's a negative thing and then on top of that this is the Western standard of what's beautiful and you're not even that and then that just is like bam bam and that does mentally and emotionally weigh on people.
M: Yeah.
H: So as a whole I would say yes because I feel like... I would say no as well because I feel like my mom's standards or my parents' standards are not based off their culture but it's also based off of Western society because they've been here for so long... so what my dad and my mom, my mom's been here all her life and my dad he's been here for more than a few years like what almost 30-something years, they're damn pretty adapted to the Western mindset of what beauty is, and so when I look at me they're not looking at it as you know people from my country look like this people from where I'm from look like this which is similar to what I look like, but people here in America don't look like that and that's a problem. So I would say it really depends on your family and how long they've really been in the Western society... technically my parents are both from Western countries but yeah specifically in America like there is a standard of what is beauty and then if your parents live there all their lives, it does become second nature to them, and then that's what they're trying to pass. They're gonna pass onto the next generation, even though culturally that's not right. That's just how it is, that's how I view it so.
M: Thank you.