Food and Well-being

Welcome to the 5th episode of Campus Conversations at WWU! This episode is all about food: how to create a healthy relationship with food, how we use it to express culture and build community, and what are the barriers and access as college students.

Transcript

0:00

I’m shaggy sitting by a fountain 

Having conversations 

About well-being and how to be alive 

I’m sitting with my fish friend 

Feeling all my feelings 

Asking what it would be like if we could thrive 

We can thrive 

It’s Campus conversations

It’s Campus conversations

It’s Campus conversations

It’s Campus conversations

0:40

Welcome back to Campus Conversations. I'm Charlie and I'm Kayla. We're a student-led podcast run through the Health Promotion and Resilience Program at Western Washington University. This episode is all about food, how to create a healthy relationship with food, how we use it to express culture and build community, and talking about barriers and access as college students. So let's jump right into it. We conducted student interviews on campus to ask a few questions about food. Our first question focused on comfort foods and how it can support our mental health. We asked students, what's your comfort food and how does it support your mental health?

01:18

Definitely something warm. I really like warm foods because it's scientifically proven to help anxiety and depression when holding something like tea, soup, and such. And I really like, curry. A lot of the time. Or chicken rice and gravy. 

01:38

My favorite comfort food, I gotta say, a really good baconator always puts me in a good mood. It's so, like, big and filling. It's delicious. Hits the spot every time. And every time I eat it, I'm just like, life's pretty good. I got something to be happy about.

01:54

Probably any kind of pasta. Like a classic butternut oil or a white cheddar. Mac and cheese always hits just something comforting. A warm bowl of pasta, no matter what it is. Yeah. 

02:09

See, I really like mac and cheese. My favorite comfort food is probably mac and cheese. Honestly, Mac and cheese. Like box mac and cheese specifically because it's like, it, like, reminds me of my childhood. And it's like, just like always like I feel that food is like just mac and cheese. It's like. And it's like. It's like warm and filling and it's like, mmm.

02:25

Definitely spaghetti and meat sauce. It's very, very meaty. And, you know, I'll make it for you. Just the act of making it after, like, kind of stressful. It makes me feel like I can calm down or that I can just okay, I can compartmentalize, you know, like, whatever's stressing me out. That's over there. I'm having a good meal right now. 

02:45

I would say, my favorite comfort food is the crunchwrap supreme with a baja blast ice cold. And, mentally, I get to forget about all my problems, and I just get to relax and have time to myself. And that is just, that is just good to have something where you can just, remove yourself from your world and just chill out, listen to some music, and just be, be still. 

03:11

There can be a lot of emotions tied up with the food we eat, and things can be both positive and negative. A lot of people that I've talked to have mentioned that cooking and eating sometimes feels like a chore, or it takes up too much time.

03:25

And I totally relate to this. I was an athlete in high school throughout the four years, and I was just very busy, and food was something that I needed to perform in my sport, but something that I didn't have a whole lot of time for. So it often just felt like something I needed to do or a chore that I had to do, rather than a fun thing that I get to do.

03:46

I feel like there's something a lot of people experience, and there can be unhealthy ways to engage with food. Some people can be overly restrictive about the food they eat, and others don't even think about food until they're starving any whatever's available and convenient. But there are other ways that we can engage with food. Absolutely. There is one way that I really like to cook is by putting on some music and then just dancing around in my kitchen while I'm chopping and cooking and stirring, or I like to invite my roomies to come hang with me so we can yap while I'm cooking, and then we can all eat together afterwards.

04:23

Or some days when I'm feeling more low energy, I'll just put on one of my favorite shows or my favorite movie and have it on in the background. While I'm cooking. It just makes me way more excited to cook my meal for me, because it's a time to connect with myself or with my community. I love all those ideas that makes cooking so fun and food so fun.

04:43

Food isn't just something that nourishes your body, it's something that supports every aspect of your health, not just your physical health, but your cognition, your learning, as well as your emotional regulation and also your social health. Absolutely. When we're hungry, our bodies start to conserve as much energy as possible, so our brains and our bodies are not able to function as well.

05:08

If we're seeking out food and we're really starving. Yeah. And this makes it harder to manage our emotions and learn new information. Anything beyond the bare minimum. There are a lot of chemicals in our brain and body that impact how we feel and how much energy we have. Serotonin is an important feelgood drug our brain produces that helps us feel happier and regulate our mood and is.

05:32

And it's produced in our gut because serotonin is produced in our gut. This means that the food that we eat impacts not only how much physical energy we have, but also our ability to emotionally regulate our guts. And our brains are very connected. A lot of people think of mental health and physical health as separate things, when in fact they're very intertwined.

05:55

And this is why eating our comfort foods can actually support our mental health. Exactly. So we've explored how food can support us as individuals, but it's also a big part of how we connect with others. So let's dive into how food brings people together through culture, family, and community. Our next student interview question focused on the relationship between food and family growing up. We went to Red Square and we asked students, what was your family's relationship with food growing up? 

06:29

My family's relationship with food was always really positive and my dad always cooked the most. Growing up. And whenever I had a friend over, my dad would always send him with send them home with like a to-go box. My dad really loves cooking, and it's kind of like his favorite thing, so he likes to pretend to be in cutthroat kitchen and throw things together in the fridge. So it's just to have a lot of positive memories for my dad around food.

06:52

Growing up, I think it was pretty good on my siblings and me. We were really picky. And we were on food stamps for a while. So we didn't really have a choice in what we eat it. But now I think we all love every food we try.

07:11

So my family had a pretty healthy relationship with food growing up. I feel like my parents really instilled in me, like as a young athlete, that food is fuel and there were never any, any controlling things with like the portions we ate or when we choose to eat. They're always very encouraging of eating enough so I grew up in like a healthy food only family.

07:35

Some people might call it like granola, almond, mom kind of thing. Only whole foods, all ingredients, but at the same time, a lot of vegetables, a lot of I mean, all vegetables, whole grains, healthy proteins. So I definitely had a balanced nutritional intake growing up. But at the same time, I definitely couldn't eat a lot of foods I wanted to eat as like a child because I wanted sugar and like burgers and pizza. And we didn't eat that a lot around. One of my first things that I ate was, a piece of fried chicken. So we were like, definitely very into, making sure that we were all fed. I learned how to cook.

08:17

So my grandma used to make Thanksgiving dinner with her. So food is always for me and my family. Kind of been a thing that brings us together and gives us an opportunity to spend time together and to, you know, kind of make memories that we can hold on to for the rest of our lives. And I just think it's a really beautiful thing.

08:31

Everyone has had a very different family culture around food growing up. Some people had regular family dinners. Some people watched TV, eating dinner every night. Some people experience food insecurity or had very inconsistent access to healthy food. Our family culture around food shapes how we interact with food as adults, but we get to choose how this shapes us.

08:53

What parts of your family culture do you really value and want to carry with you? And which parts do you want to leave behind? When we are intentional about our relationship with food. Cooking and eating food can turn into a way to show love to others. Food is a powerful tool to build community with other people. What does that look like for you, Kayla?

09:16

Yeah. For me, I think that sharing food is like a really great way to show love. When someone is sick, maybe offer to bring them some soup or a little home cooked meal or a snack or something. Even some gatorade or something like that. Oh my gosh. That, it's just a way to show you love them.

09:35

A way to build community, a way to support your friends, and also in the reverse sense of that when you are sick, when you are struggling, ask for help. If you're feeling sick, ask for some soup, ask for support, and be willing to receive that support in the same way. And that's how we build community. It's like almost opening the door for connection, and you open the door for both ways of connection is really beautiful.

09:56

Totally, totally. Food is a resource, and sharing food builds strong communities. Yes, even throughout human history, it's been more efficient for people to work together to prepare food rather than doing it by themselves. Humans are inherently social beings, and many cultures deeply value eating in community rather than alone. Absolutely. For example, the way that Native Americans have traditionally interacted with their environment can teach incredibly valuable lessons about the relationship between food and culture.

10:32

Yeah, two of the tribes that are local to Bellingham are the Lummi Nation and the Nooksack Tribe, and there are also 29 tribes total just in Washington state alone. The Native American tribes’ way of living has historically been centered around communal living and shared resources. Salmon is a huge part of their culture, identity, and spiritual well-being. Cooking food isn't considered an individual job.

10:56

It's a responsibility that's taken on by the entire community. While sharing food and building community is important, we also want to acknowledge that there can be significant challenges when it comes to accessing meals and ingredients. Let's talk about some of those barriers and ways that students are finding solutions. From a basic needs survey at Western Washington University, about 45% of students reported experiencing food insecurity within the past 30 days.

11:23

And in Washington state, out of all of the students that are experiencing basic needs, insecurity, only about half of those students are accessing basic needs resources that are available to them. Only half. Yeah. Oh my gosh. And reasons for this. About 18% of people said that they lacked awareness of these resources, and 36% said that they were ineligible for these resources.

11:48

Wow. So according to this survey, awareness of resources and eligibility are the biggest barriers for students accessing basic needs resources. Exactly. With our last student interview question, we wanted to hear about students struggle meals. We asked students, do you have any easy or cheap recipe ideas? 

12:10

For sure. Here's like a life hack for any of you out there. Get a crock pot and you get a liquid that tastes good and like meat or solid that tastes good with that liquid. And you just put them in the crock pot on a low for like eight hours and it'll come out tasting good. It does not matter. You can do like a chicken breast and some beef stock. It'll probably be good. I the other day I just did like a couple cans of pasta sauce and a chicken breast. It's awesome. You just put noodles in it. It's fine no matter what. If you don't know what to make, just put it in a slow cooker and it'll probably be good when it's done.

12:46

I had, I had like a bed of rice and then over it I put way too much butter, way too much butter. It makes everything better. A lot of lime. And then, tomato paste. I mixed it all together. And then I made it, like, spicy with cholula or tabasco or whatever. And it's lovely. It's very quick. It's very easy.

13:08

 Just a quesadilla—a little bit of mayo and some taco seasoning. And if you put that on a cheese quesadilla, that one's really good.

13:16

Any kind of soup, like. I feel like I just chop up a bunch of raw vegetables and just seasoned some ground beef and put it in some chicken broth and easy soup right there. 

13:28

There are a lot of barriers to getting consistent, healthy access to food, and one of the biggest barriers for college students is finding time to actually plan the meals that they're going to eat, go to the store and cook the food. Kayla, do you have any tips or ideas for students who are struggling with this? Yeah, this is one of my biggest struggles is finding time to go to the store. One idea I had was like coordinating with your roommates or your friends and trying to do shopping together. Ooh, I love that you can almost make it like a fun little roomie day or a friend day.

14:00

Shopping with friends makes it so much easier. Oh my gosh, I feel like I would actually look forward to shopping for doing that. All right it's 2025. Groceries are so expensive. What are we going to do that is so real Kayla I do not have all the answers. But there are options available. Specifically, the food pantry at school is a great place to go for staples like butter, milk, eggs, produce, pasta, ramen.

14:33

So use your resources and just find what's available to you and utilize that totally. Another thought is like there are some stores that are cheaper options. So like being intentional about where you shop. Oh, and another thing that I like to do for me, I like to make a list before I go shopping just to have an idea of what I'm buying, so that when I go to the store, I'm not just roaming around like aimlessly.

14:59

This saves me time and money, honestly. Having a list. But also I am very flexible with the list. So if I see things that are on sale or things that I like or adjust as needed as I get to the store. So like flexibility to yeah, usually seasonal produce is a lot cheaper and then produces out of season.

15:17

So looking at the things that are on sale for each store can be a big lifesaver. Totally. Yeah. Also, we're in college. You probably have a roommate. You probably have multiple roommates. Finding space in the fridge is a struggle for me. Yeah, I noticed that when I went to your house last week. I noticed that you have four cartons of eggs in your fridge.

15:43

Kayla. Explain yourself. Yeah, I do. Okay. I at my house, I really like to have a list of communal food in the fridge that is open to everyone in the house, and my roommates and I just rotate who buys it. And so for us, that looks like eggs, butter, condiment, milk, juice are all communal. And when they're empty, someone replaces it and it's just fair.

16:12

And we have a cycle for it. And then that means we don't have four cartons of eggs filling up our fridge or four cartons of milk just makes it a lot more accessible and easier for everyone, in my opinion. Totally. That would save me so much space I need to start doing this. Is great to have Charlie. For me and my roommates, we we like to have like different designated areas in our fridge, in our pantry and stuff.

16:37

So for me and my roommates, we each have our own shelf. So like, I have the middle shelf, and we have a couple things that are like shared communal stuff, but we like to communicate and that helps out a ton. Absolutely. I love the individual shelf ideas because you can have all of your food in one spot, and it's really easy to find.

16:56

That's amazing. One thing I tried to do also is to be intentional about cleaning out my fridge consistently, because with so many people, food can get lost in there and then it can go bad and it takes up space. But I like to clean up my fridge at least once a week, and it just frees up a lot of space for food that I'm actually going to use, and actually going to eat them the same way.

17:17

Another thing that I've been thinking a lot about is we've all had different experiences learning how to cook, coming into college. We all have different knowledges of how to cook, and that's so different for everybody. So what do we do about that? How do we learn to cook? I am a big recipe girly, I love recipes. I really like to find recipes that have flavors that really interest me or have ingredients that I already have on hand.

17:48

So, for example, I really like any recipe with pasta in it. I just know that I'm going to enjoy the flavors no matter what specific ingredients I put in it. So that is one way to motivate me when I don't really know what to do or how to do it, I just look up a recipe and saying, yeah, I use recipes a ton, especially when I was first learning how to cook and when I was first learning how to cook, I sort of had this idea that I had to follow the recipe exactly how it's written.

18:14

But you can be flexible, especially when you're cooking. Don't be afraid to sub out ingredients. Try different things. A lot of times the recipes can have ingredients that are not at the store or like, not affordable or just maybe something you don't have in your fridge or pantry. So substitute it out. Use things you have. Be creative. Be flexible.

18:33

That can help out a ton. Yeah, like cooking is not the same as baking at all. You don't need to be strictly on the recipe. It can be like really flexible and just guidelines. And it's also a really fun opportunity to bring creativity into the cooking session because you're going to just something's out. Try them out and see how that goes.

18:54

One thing that I struggle with a lot, with my cooking and my planning, and that I've heard a lot of other college students struggling with, is figuring out how to maintain consistency and planning for meals, because it's a lot of mental labor to actually think of what you want to make, go to the store and do all of the things that go along with cooking.

19:13

It's a lot of work. If creating a full shopping list of every ingredient might be a little bit overwhelming, you could try just making a list of meal ideas. Oh yes, I love to do that. I have a list on my phone of all of the meals that I like to make, and every time I try a new meal that I really like, I just add it to the list.

19:35

So then on the days where I don't know what to cook and I can't think of anything, I just pull up my list and I pick something that feels right. And it's also really fun for when I'm offering to cook for other people. Then I can just show them. I bake long lists of meals, and they can pick whatever they want from it, and they know that I can make it.

19:53

Ooh, I love that idea so much. I'm going to start doing this. So what's one meal on your list that's like super easy you can make when you have no energy at all? Oh my gosh. My go to that. I make probably at least twice a week is French toast. I make sure that I always have my French toast ingredients on hand, because I know that I will eat it all the time in any circumstance, and I will always have time to make it.

20:18

So that's one of my go to on my meal list. It's my favorite. Yum! I'm making French toast after this now. All right. Let's talk about some resources. On campus and in the larger Bellingham community that are all available to students. So we'll be giving a little overview of each resource. And we'll also be including links in the bio this episode.

20:40

If you would like to find out more about them. Surely you work at the Basic Needs Hub, right? Do you want to talk a little bit about that? I do indeed, Kayla. So the Basic Needs Hub helps connect students to resources to meet their basic needs. Along with helping with off campus living and campus resources, they can help with applying for Snap assistance and they can help with other food resources.

21:02

If you go to the Basic Needs a website, there's a whole page dedicated to food resources that are accessible to all students. The other thing that the basic needs have runs is the whole food pantry. As of fall 2025, students voted to implement a small fee to keep the whole food pantry restocked throughout the day. There's now things like bread, milk, eggs, butter, produce, ramen, pasta, and even toiletries stocked in the food pantry every day.

21:30

The W.H.O.L.E. Food Pantry is located in the Viking Union building on the fourth floor, and it's open to all students, no questions asked. It can be a little tricky to find. You have to walk down two flights of stairs to get there, but you can find it if you just follow the science. Yeah, I didn't know about the whole food pantry until recently, so it's a great resource that I think I read about.

21:49

It's so cool. Now, I didn't used to have funding, so it was kind of sporadically stocked, but now it has funding and it's stocked every single day. It's really cool. Incredible. There are also a lot of food banks in in Bellingham. The Bellingham Food Bank is open to anyone in the community. No ID or documentation required whatsoever. They're open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

22:11

And there's no limit to how many times you can go in a week. This is a great opportunity to try coordinating with friends or roommates to go out together, or offer to pick up food for each other when your schedules are busy. This is really cool, because the Bellingham Food Bank allows you to pick up food boxes for other people in your household and other people in your community.

22:31

You just have to write down their names. So it's a really great resource, and community resources are so much more accessible when you utilize your community. Another resource is that Western has partnered with is City Sprouts Farms, who connect students to seasonal fresh produce. Any student can apply to get a box and receive a weekly box of fresh produce.

22:54

To use or to share with others. Oh my gosh, I started getting these boxes at the beginning of the quarter. They're amazing. I signed up through the Basic Needs hub and every Wednesday I go and I pick up a box and they have carrots. Other produce that I've never even heard of before. They have Brussel sprouts, potatoes, sometimes even get a loaf of local bread.

23:14

It's really amazing. The City Sprouts Farm are trying to work to make locally grown, nutritious food way more accessible, and you can sign up on the Basic Needs Hub food page. Amazing! Another Western resource is a club on campus called Health at Every Size Club. Health at Every Size Club is also a social movement as well as a club at Western, but basically they just promote this idea that all sized bodies can be healthy, and what someone's body looks like doesn't determine how healthy they are.

23:45

How good of your size clinics, meetings are weekly meetings, and they're just a safe space to have open conversations about different experiences with food, as well as eating and body image and all sorts of stuff like that. I love that, that's amazing. Well, there are so many resources available. If only people knew how to access money. You know, we'll have a link in our bio with all of the links and descriptions of each resource that we've talked about here, so please check that out if you're wanting to learn more and more information about them.

24:20

And that's a wrap for our episode. Thank you for tuning in. We hope these tips and resources help make your campus experience a little easier and a lot more delicious. Our next episode will be an interview with an expert psychology professor Anna Chow, who does research on eating disorder prevention. Join us next time when we ask her questions like what is the gut brain connection?

24:43

What does healthy mean when it comes to food and dieting? Does it help support physical health? This podcast is a student led podcast and was created with the support of the Office of Health Promotion and Resilience. This office helps campus initiatives to nurture student well-being and generate thriving communities, and we have a lot of resources and links to help support your well-being.

25:08

For more resources related to well-being, check out their website linked in the bio. And thank you so, so much to our editing team for doing so much work behind the scenes to make this episode possible. And thank you to Kayla, Chloe, Marissa, and Hannah for conducting student interviews and read square. And also big thank you to all the students that stopped by and agreed to be interviewed.

25:30

We got so many amazing responses and it was so cool to talk to all of you. And thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who's listened to this and shared the episode. Follow us on Instagram to find out when we'll be in Red Square conducting student interviews next. 

25:47

In the trees and in the forest.
And all that’s come before us.
We feel to find the wisdom in our bones, releasing judgement and old stories, remembering our glory.
We rest in love and walk each other home.
We're not alone. 
It’s Campus Conversations
It's Campus Conversations
It's Campus Conversations
It's Campus Conversations

Resources:

WWU Office of Health Promotion and Resilience

WWU Basic Needs Hub

WWU W.H.O.L.E. Pantry

Bellingham Food Bank

City Sprouts Farms

Health at Every Size Club

@bewellwwu on Instagram