“I’ll admit that my Penn career has been all over the place,” says Arts & Sciences undergraduate Grace Choi. “I am thankful that I have mustered the courage to dabble in so many different things, and that the school has the resources to help me explore all these fields, even those I might only be mildly curious about.”
Choi came into Penn as an anthropology major, aiming to study the subjects she loved—diverse cultures, languages, and histories—while recognizing that a liberal arts program would hone the critical-thinking skills essential to professions that also incorporated her passion for the sciences.
“Staying home because of the pandemic gave me the freedom of time to take advantage of everything Penn has to offer. I could fit more into my days, and that inspired me to try more things, even if they were new to me and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing,” she laughs.
Beyond motivating her to explore an assortment of activities, the COVID-19 crisis inspired Choi to declare a second major in nutrition science at the beginning of her junior year. The three semesters she spent working virtually from her family’s house in Norwood, New Jersey, had given her perspective on what a luxury it was to have her parents providing her with fresh, home-cooked meals—like her mom’s savory Korean pancakes, called pa jun—while many people struggled to obtain food at all. Then, after returning to campus last August and living independently for the first time without a university dining plan, she suddenly found herself dining out or ordering takeout almost daily.
“As a college student, it is so hard to find time to cook or prioritize eating well,” says Choi, who decided to devote her Research Seminar in Anthropology to studying food insecurity on college campuses and promptly identified a gap in existing literature. Although many researchers had connected students’ socioeconomic statuses to their eating habits, almost none had gauged what dining options students had access to in the first place, or what factors drove their food choices.
Choi set out to answer these questions at Penn, surveying students on how and why they eat the foods they do. Responses showed that because of their fast-paced, atypical schedules, location and time governed most of their food choices, with fast food reigning supreme (particularly for older students without dining plans) and students skipping meals altogether if nothing quick was nearby.
“The pressures of academics and balancing many responsibilities at once push eating to be a last priority,” she says. “Food security is not just about having enough to eat, but also what we eat, and students are choosing the fastest and most convenient things they can acquire rather than fueling their bodies with the right nutrients.”
To help students eat more healthfully, Choi would like to see more options for fresh fruits and vegetables and more nutritious “grab-and-go” meals and snacks across campus.
This story is by Karen Brooks. Read more at OMNIA.
