Have your cake and freakin' eat it

I’m a self-proclaimed food junkie. I’ll probably never be as skinny as I could be because white chocolate mochas, Coca Cola, In-N-Out and potato chips are here to stay.
I’ve been this way since I was little. I came to college, fully expecting to be surrounded by fellow food junkies. I dreamed of times spent together eating chili cheese fries and chugging Mountain Dew to stay up long enough to finish our papers.

I was shocked to find that I was wrong.

That statement might be a little too general, since there are still some of us out there. But, to this day, I’m a little surprised by how many people at LMU are already concerned about weight issues and health complications they don’t even have. Conversations about feeling guilty for eating tacos instead of salad and the ways to resist overwhelming cravings for “bad” food can be heard around campus. It’s even gotten to the point where people have confessed to me that they feel guilty because they ordered chicken when the people around them ordered tofu. My peers and I were supposed to bond over the experience of the freshman 15. Yet a significant number of people seem to be refraining from participating in this time-honored tradition.

Every once in a while, I slip into this mentality and check the calories on my lunch, or force myself to walk over to the gym (although lately, the rain has been a great excuse to get out of it) or even get on a bike while I read for my English class that night. Usually, though, I’m able to sidestep the guilt and eat my pizza without compunction.

It wasn’t until a few weeks ago when I noticed that there are little charts, detailing the calories, fat, sodium etc. at many of the food stations around campus.

Sodexo’s choice to post the nutritional information about the food they’re serving is a good move. It’s great to be able to check on what is exactly in my lunch. However, knowing how many calories are in those chicken strips I love from the Lair or the wraps at Roski somehow ruins my enjoyment of them. Even though one can probably assume that chicken strips and fries are not the healthy route, I could still fool myself into thinking that it probably wasn’t that bad for me, especially since I was eating them every day. That time is gone.

How inhibiting is it that we’re constantly plagued by the worry of whether or not what we’re eating will make us gain weight? Will it help us lose weight? Will it clog up our arteries several years from now and cut our life short?

This is a sad way to experience food.

It is important to be healthy, of course. Without good health, it is impossible to fully experience everything the world has to offer us. But no one should be worrying as much as we do about what we eat. This anxiety over our eating habits is getting in the way of enjoying one of the best parts of life– the food.

I’m not advocating for candy bars as a main course or even as a dessert every night. (That’s a lie. Yes I am. I completely support eating ice cream for breakfast. You have to do it at least once.) What I’m trying to say is: We’re young, we have fast metabolisms and we should be taking full advantage of it.

Just eat the freakin’ hamburger and enjoy it.

This is the opinion of Kayla Begg, a sophomore English and history major from San Diego, Calif.