Since the beginning of time, or maybe the beginning of times, man has examined through anthropological study. The sharing of food and meals has played an important role in forming and dictating the boundaries of several forms of social relationships. Generally speaking, the sharing of food, or of a meal, with another individual or group has been regarded as a way to form amicable relations, or at the very least to conduct somewhat civil business. Sharing food has even developed, from prehistory until modern day, into a standby of religious rituals and are even an integral part of most observed holidays. The point being, for whatever reason, that man has used food as a catalyst of social relations since the start of the measureable existence of society.

In modern-day times, it is common to schedule day-to-day activities and responsibilities around somewhat predetermined meal times. This doesn’t necessarily have to mean three square meals a day, or always taking your lunch break starting at noon, it includes all sorts of meal schedules which quite easily become habitually ingrained into the rhythm of life for an individual. These practices, more often than not, are less than ideally nutritional, and this lack of true value of nutrition often has to do with the social implications of meal times, or the sharing of food. This is especially prevalent in settings that are inherently socially focused; take for example, a college campus.

Without delving too deeply into the world of disordered eating this time around, there are several social issues surrounding the obtaining and consumption of food in a place that requires sociability to do almost any of that. In college, it is not uncommon for a group of friends to share eating habits, such as dining together on a regular schedule, or eating in the same locations, even consuming the same types of food. This kind of routine furthers itself when these same people are together literally all of the time. In what is roughly the typical college experience, food options essentially consist of dining halls, campus restaurants, or cooking one’s own food in a communal space, whether that be the unfortunate hall kitchen, or even a kitchen shared with just a roommate or two.

Essentially, a good portion of the time food is to be obtained, there is to be a social component. If this social component is at all off-putting, then therein lies the issue of physical health being affected directly by a mental state. We have stigmatized upon the idea of eating alone, writing people off as socially inept, or friendless for doing so. But more and more millennials, young women especially, are beginning to become vocal about these presuppositions. Social health and physical health are already so intertwined, that we do not need the extra pressure to further the relationship.

Has social conditioning gone far enough? How would you feel about eating alone?