“The unhealthier meals are more affordable than the healthier meals:”
“The unhealthier meals are more affordable than the healthier meals:”
The Story of Veronica
The Story of Veronica
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Demographics: Black, Female, Undergraduate Student, Nutrition
Tags: Community College, Sophomore, Public Health
ElevenLabs_My_name_is_Veronica,_I_am....mp3
My name is Veronica, I am a sophomore. I'm actually new to Opportunity University. I used to go to community college in a neighboring city. I am a public health major, and I'm interested in getting into nutrition. I want to help, specifically people my age, youth, be able to just get more nutrition information because I feel like a lot that happens in America is, they give solutions to help treat diseases. But they don't really put much work into preventing them and preach nutrition here. So, I'm tryna be a nutrition specialist, but also in my life I like to pursue other passions. I'm into music and dancing, and the arts. So, I definitely want to pursue those as well. And maybe get into entrepreneurship.
I come from a middle class family. My mom is the breadwinner in my family. So, unfortunately, even though my mom has assisted me with money recently, she pays for everything in the house. So, sometimes I don't really wanna ask her for money. And it's also just that she kinda struggles with money herself. So that's why I try to also get my own money. I'm not working right now, so my money's been running low recently. I've definitely had situations where I wasn't always the most financially stable. Thankfully, at the beginning of this semester I did get a scholarship, outside of Opportunity University. So it helped me a lot with being able to afford food, since most of the money went towards food and everything else that I needed, ‘cause I live on campus. But, because I'm not working currently, it's definitely kinda been hard. Had to pause some subscriptions and everything. So yeah, that's where I am financially. I do have a mom that makes a reasonable income. But because she pays for everything, and also has a lot of debt herself, sometimes it can be tricky for me financially wise, getting support.
My dad’s work situation is very confusing, to be honest. He doesn't have a full-time job. I know he's an Uber driver. But I think he also works for Census. He does all of that stuff part-time. So because of that, my mom, she's like the breadwinner. Even though my dad doesn't make as much income as my mom, he could still be helping, since she is the breadwinner and she's paying for everything, but he doesn't. They kinda have an abusive relationship, so my mom pays for everything in the house. Like, she pays for cable, she pays for the mortgage, she pays for food. I have three other brothers, Bobby, Eric, and Adam. She's paid for all of our schooling, which is part of the reason she's in a lot of debt, because my two brothers, Eric and Adam, went to college and she took out loans for them and everything. So she has a lot of debt herself.
She makes, I believe, around $100K a year, but we live in a house that is more than her income. So that takes a lot of her pay. And then just really having to afford everything else. My youngest brother, Bobby, has autism, so she spends a lot of money for his medicine and his supplements. Also just really for his care because he's involved in, I forget what they're called. I think it's from the Department of Human Services. But Bobby's involved in that. I think she pays around $30,000 for him every year, just alone. So, it's definitely a lot for her. Because she's working so much, she also gets sick frequently. Even though she's been helping me recently, that's part of the reason I don't always feel comfortable asking her for money. Because I already know she works so hard, and she gets sick very frequently because of that. And her stress levels have been up a lot. She had a high blood pressure scare a few months ago. So, yeah, that's the financial situation. She's also 60. She's working all day constantly, while not really getting that much support outside. 'Cause she doesn't really tell people her financial situation either. It's really only the family that knows.
I used to go to Community College. I was living at home, but we didn't really have a lot of food in the house. I wasn't really able to buy groceries unfortunately. I wasn't working at the beginning of the semester, so that was part of it. I wasn't working until the summer of last year. So when I first started with CC, over a year ago, I didn't really have that much money. My account would go overdraft multiple times. I wasn't really able to get groceries myself. My mom wasn't really getting that many groceries for me either. I mean, she started getting a couple more things for me. But me and my mom, we also didn't really have the best relationship last year either, so because of that she didn't really like getting me as many things as she could've been getting me. She also wasn't letting me cook that much either, so I just wasn't really able to get a lot of food in me. So even gaining weight was a struggle also because of that. That was pretty much what I was dealing with when I was at CC.
At CC, they have pantries, but it's mainly like… snacks. That was helpful, of course, to get something in me. But they mainly just had snacks. They didn't really have a lot of food items, like you guys do. So I wasn't able to really bring a lot of food items home. I mainly just had snacks. So, the first time I decided to use The Opportunity Pantry was, the beginning of the semester. I forgot how I heard about it. Because Community College had a pantry, I was curious to see if Opportunity had a pantry. I also constantly saw the sign, 'cause it's like right near where I live. So, I always saw it and I was just always wondering what it was. The first time I went there I loved it, because I just felt like it was really like a shop. There were so many food items, I was able to get a lot of things that I was using to this day, like pasta. I was able to get some eggs from there. I was able to get chicken. It felt really nice, like definitely through the beginning half of the semester, most of my food items I was getting from there. It was very convenient because I didn't really have that income to be getting groceries every single week, and getting food out every week because, with the scholarship that I got, in just the first month I spent over $400 on food. Because it was like a thousand dollar scholarship, and I already had to pay like $500 of my tuition with that scholarship. So I didn't really have a lot of money, like I got in the beginning. So, it just really helped me save more money. From then on, I always would recommend it to people. Because, I just feel like you guys actually have a variety of resources, and you switch it up too. It's not the same things every week. So, that was my first experience, I just loved it.
So I did go to The Opportunity Pantry last week. I didn't use it for a few weeks because, thankfully, my mom, when it was spring break, she did get me food items that lasted me a couple of weeks. So, I wasn't using it. But before spring break, I was using The Opportunity Pantry every week. The last time I experienced food insecurity was about a month ago. It was during the week. I ran out of pretty much a good amount of food items. Especially healthy food items. So there's a whole week, I think I was only eating really, maybe two times a day. Which is not that bad, but I usually try to aim to eat three times a day. I wasn't really able to do that because I didn't really have all the items. I didn't really have healthy stuff, I was kinda just eating very unhealthy also. The other time I experienced food insecurity, I think, was during last month, towards the end of the month. I have these monthly payments that I pay for one of my credit cards. 'Cause I used to have two student credit cards. One of them I was no longer able to pay for, so I canceled it. It's a Discover Card. Basically, what they do is they have a program where you could just pay them, like, $25 every month to pay that back. So because that's coming out of my account, it's kinda like my money is decreasing, decreasing. Food around here is definitely very expensive, so that time last month, towards the end of the month, I kinda have been in a tricky situation because I was running low on money and it's like everything around is so expensive. So, yeah, thankfully I was able to get some help. I think I got help from two people. One of my friends just gave me $10, and then my mom I think gave me like $50.
Food insecurity, it definitely doesn't feel good because there have been a few times, thankfully it hasn't happened too much this semester. But there definitely have been a few times that I was running out of items, AKA like this week and last week. And I was in panic mode because I kind of am on the go as a student. I have classes three days a week, and then I'm involved in clubs. I'm also like, 5 '9”, so especially me being tall, having a fast metabolism, I need food. So it's definitely made me panic when I'm running out of food.
Two weeks ago, I had a health scare. I was underweight because I wasn't really eating enough. Part of it was because in my home there weren't really that many food items. So I kinda just wasn't really eating that much. Thankfully, I'm no longer underweight, but because of that scare, sometimes when I see food insecurity while being here, it just scares me, and I’ll be like, "Ah, I need food." Like, I just wanna make sure I'm eating enough. Like I said, thankfully it hasn't happened that much this semester. But I have experienced it a couple times and thankfully I've run to the pantry and you guys usually have stuff. But even right now I need to get chicken and all this stuff. I'm tired of spending money every single week just to make sure I don't go hungry. So yeah, it kinda has been taking a toll on me more recently. It can just be a little bit hard when it happens.
I’ll be honest, I feel like food insecurity hasn’t really impacted my academics because I just am really disciplined with my academics. Like, I've even been more disciplined here than I was when I was at CC. I kinda just make a habit to try to get everything done in advance and early. I would say though, while it hasn't impacted my grades, it definitely can impact my workflow, because if I'm struggling to find something to eat, then it's like I'm trying to devote time to figure that out. It kinda cuts into my study time or my work time. So it definitely has impacted my work time and study time. But I wouldn't say it's impacted my grades so far, thankfully. But there definitely have been multiple times where like, especially this week. I didn't really have a lot of food items, so it's like, now I'm tryna make time to figure out ‘where am I gonna get food from?’ Which is why I even went to the pantry this week. I don't have a car on campus, so I'm not able to just really drive around to the grocery store. My roommate, Sabrina, we have gone to the grocery store at times, but she now works at another job, so I'm not always able to go grocery shopping with her. I don't have a lot of friends that have cars, either. So it's just a little bit inconvenient. It was a little bit inconvenient for me this week, so that's why I went to the pantry. But, there definitely have been times in general where like, I'm just tryna figure out what to do, and usually I try to get my work done early in the day. There've been times I've had to try to get it done later in the night, which is not really the most convenient for me because I'm tryna go to bed.
So, yeah, food insecurity has impacted my time, and I would say an instance that it definitely impacted my time was, like, a Tuesday or a Thursday, I believe. There were multiple things going on that day. So I have this volunteer thing I go to. I also had another club meeting, for this fashion show. Well, the fashion show that happened on campus, I believe. Then there was something else I had scheduled. I think I had a Zoom meeting. So I was kinda on the go, and usually when days like that happen, I try to go back to my apartment to get some food. But, I wasn't able to do that that day because I was able to come back home, but I wasn't really able to eat anything because I didn't really have many food items. I knew even if I did, I wouldn't really have the time to cook. So I had to ask one of my friends if I could borrow his meal plan.
There've actually been a couple of times I had to do that, where I had to ask people to borrow their meal plans so I can just get something to eat. So that way I'm not not having food, especially because I was on the go all day. So that definitely impacted my time. Another day, I had homework due. Thankfully I was able to submit it on time. But I wanted to work on it a lot earlier, and I had to pretty much abandon all of that and get food items and cook them so that way I would be able to get food for the week. So a lot of the time I wanna use for academics I spend thinking about food. Especially going shopping, because like I said, I don't have a vehicle. Thankfully I've had Sabrina, and then I have another friend who’s been able to help me, but yeah, just those inconveniences, really.
Learning about nutrition has definitely impacted my situation, with me honestly feeling more annoyed with food insecurity when it happens to me. Because, with what I've been learning in nutrition and public health, there are diseases that are preventable, or that you could at least treat more or avoid more. Just certain things, with just proper nutrition, especially healthy items like eating your greens, your vegetables. But, those are not really always that easy to obtain. I've noticed, specifically with nutrition, the unhealthier meals are more affordable than the healthier meals that you're seeing all these health organization's recommend to you. So it definitely has frustrated me more when I am food insecure in those items.
Me being in this major and learning more about nutrition, it's definitely made me want to aim to eat more healthy, but that's not always that easy to do. Thankfully, I've been able to eat three meals a day for the most part. But that's not always easy. I have to go through different things to just make sure, and I'm not always able to eat the healthiest because of food insecurity, finances specifically. So, yeah, it's definitely been frustrating, especially seeing other people, because it's not really easy to just tell people, "Oh, just eat more of this." Like, a lot of it is financially driven.
Talking about this was definitely not easy in the beginning because it's definitely just hard talking about vulnerabilities. Especially my family dynamic, because I do go to therapy, and I've mentioned it in therapy. And they kinda press you like ‘oh, like, is he helping financially?’ So when I say ‘no,’ and the dynamic, it's definitely sad to talk about, at times. But, I definitely just learned that being vocal is how people are able to help you. And just let people know they're not alone. Being a college student especially, there are numerous people that have dealt with food insecurity as well. I know multiple people just this semester with me coming here that have dealt with just not having a lot of food in their home, in their dorming. So I know one friend, she'll get one, I think she gets it from Domino's or Pizza Hut, but she'll get like one pizza and that's like all she'll eat for the whole day. So it's those situations of just food insecurity for them. I think me talking about my story, it helps affirm to me I'm not alone, also. But, yeah, it definitely can feel hard at times 'cause it's like I'm putting myself out there in a vulnerable way.
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