EATING AMIDST THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC AND MY LIFE GENERALLY DURING THE PANDEMIC

My name is Oluomachukwu Anaenugwu and I am a black girl originally from Nigeria. I am 18 years old and currently a sophomore studying public health with a minor in Biology. At the beginning of this year 2020, I enrolled in a class called CPH 201: Introduction to Public Health. This class was taken in the peak of Covid-19 and this class covered epidemiology which is the basically the study of patterns of disease occurrence and the factors affecting those in factors. This class covered terms like pandemic, quarantine, incidence rate (number of new cases), prevalence rate (total number of cases) and mortality/death rate. Therefore, the pandemic acted as a real life example/application of the concepts learned in the class. That is all I took Covid-19 for at first, a real life example, not until we transferred fully online after spring break that I knew this was very serious. 

As an international student, when the school moved fully online we received an email that stated "all undergraduate students must be moved out by noon on Friday, March 27." 

I was panicking because I had no idea where to stay or what to do and all this was happening while classes were transitioning to an online format so this was a recipe for confusion and disaster. Thankfully, it turned out that we could still stay in the dorms. My plan right from the beginning of the second semester of my freshman year was to go back home in Nigeria to spend the summer with my family but due to the Covid-19 situation the trip was postponed till June with the hope that the situation will be better. June came by but the situation had gotten worse. I still wanted to go back home but my mum didn't want to risk my health and also the Covid-19 situation had gotten worse back at home. Even if I tried my very best to go home, all the borders were closed. I ended up spending summer alone in an apartment close to campus. The major way covid-19 changed my life was the increased number of times my mum and family called a week to check up on my mental being and health. I can say the closest I think I have come to Covid-19 was when I took a trip this summer to Atlanta (a Covid -19 hotspot with about 100,000 cases as of July).

While on campus during the last academic year I had an unlimited meal plan where I could eat anytime I wanted to at the school dining. As a result of this I hardly ever cooked my own meal. My plan previously was to go home, back in Nigeria, after campus closed; but due to the pandemic I had to stay in Lexington for the summer in an apartment off campus by myself. Growing up my mum always prepared meals at home so I can say my cooking knowledge was very limited. I had to cook for myself this entire summer. It was a whole mixture of burnt, tasteless and some times not fully done meals. There were a lot of cooking videos watched on Youtube and Instagram and most times downloaded. I can say that my eating this summer was eventful. Also before the pandemic I went to the gym three times and also watched what I ate because I was trying to shed some pounds. I was finally getting into a routine and then the pandemic happened. I started noticing I was starving myself and trying to consume 1000 calories so as to make up not going to the gym. Then at a point in the middle of the pandemic, I started overeating because I was bored and I gained all the weight I initially lost. 

Like I said earlier, I stayed in Lexington this summer instead of going home. I can't really say I know what my family went through with feeding this pandemic because I wasn't there but from the frequent calls with my mum everything was mostly fine. The only problem was that it was harder to buy fresh food. The coronavirus hit most parts of Africa, Nigeria included, at a later time than the rest of the world. When many cases were reported different jobs, places and markets were closed. A market is a place where different people selling different products are situated. This market can further be divided to a food market where fresh food is sold. This was closed down due to the rising coronavirus rates in Nigeria. That was terrible for many people because people depended on the daily profits made from selling these goods and also people also couldn't afford to buy in bulk and even if you did there wasn't a good facility for storage due to electricity shortage. 

This is my best entry because one thing I struggled with throughout the lockdown over summer was my eating habits were I realized I was starving myself because I was afraid of gaining weight. I will say it has gotten a bit better but I still have a long way to go. The combination of both vlogs perfectly explains my life throughout this pandemic.