Street child...yummy.

Ah res food; the bane of my existence. For the longest time I truly didn't understand the concept of first year spread because hey, who could seriously get fat on food like this? But then in June last year it hit me! (Both the spread AND the answer). And now I am here to share my wisdom with you. As per usual.

Firstly, I believe a definition is needed. First year spread refers to the weight gain that 90% of students experience in their first year of varsity. The usual explanation for this is that one's parents are no longer around to keep an eye on what food is consumed, and so first year students begin to eat unhealthily and end up fat. Now, I won't deny that this is true for some people.
BUT
I would like to propose an alternative theory.

When asked what her favourite meal in the dining hall was, one of my res mates glumly replied "Toast." This echoes the beliefs of a number of my friends, who despise dining hall food and insist that eating it will kill them. Personally, I don't see what all the fuss is about. Most of the meals are edible; some are even quite enjoyable! I think that perhaps the hype about university food being bad has an effect on the beliefs of first years, and they become afraid to admit that hey, the food isn't actually that bad. (OK except the braised steak meal. The general conspiracy theory is that it isn't steak, it's actually street child. Morbid, yes. But believe me, it doesn't look anything like steak).

Anyhoo. I digress once more. My point is that first years either truly dislike the food at varsity OR pretend to in order to 'fit in' with the others. Because of this, they start to avoid the occasionally-dodgy-looking healthy meals and order fast food meals like pizzas and chicken burgers. Sometimes they take it a step further and eat only peanutbutter toast and take-away like KFC and Steers. As we all know, too much unhealthy food inevitably leads to weight gain. And Bob's your uncle, first years get fat. Simple.

And I will admit that first year spread did indeed hit me last year. In the first term I lost a lot of weight because when I received a meal I didn't like, I just didn't eat it. Towards the end of the second year I began to order the nicer fast-food meals and to keep food in my res room. Before I knew it, I was rapidly gaining an uncomfortable layer of chubbiness around my waist. As soon as third term hit I removed all fast-food from my menu and began running. While my running regime has now become rather intermittent and I do allow myself one fast-food meal a week, at least I am no longer as roly-poly as I was in winter last year.

'Skinny' is something I shall never achieve (you see, I was born with these horrible things called 'hips'...) but I can at least aim for curviness rather than wobbliness. And so every evening I amp myself up for a brief twenty minute run around campus. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I end up sitting in front of my PC eating crackers and Melrose instead (OK so the Melrose is something new I only started this week), but that's OK. We can't all be athletic superstars. I was born to be a writer, and a writer I shall remain.
But if I can be a slightly toned writer rather than one with a wobbly middle, that would be nice. :P