Starving for Extra Credit

By: Graham Smith

Sentry Staff Reporter

What would YOU do for extra credit? Staying up late doing extra work or squeezing out a tear to play on a teacher’s emotions are commonplace, but get this, kids are now STARVING themselves to receive a few extra points on their grade. It actually is not as bad as it sounds because the assignment, the Food Stamp Challenge, serves a very useful purpose. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides benefits to those in need to the extent of about $4 a day towards food costs. It is not necessarily designed to be the sole source of food for those people, but to arguably better understand the struggle these people go through, many people partake in the Food Stamp Challenge.

When the challenge first arose, people were very excited at the prospect. I would hate to bring a wrecking ball to your hopes and dreams (cue Miley Cyrus), but a $4 budget only allows for one Starbucks drink per day for the girls, while guys will find that a Chipotle burrito is about two days’ worth of Food Stamp funds. Only the strong-willed and those who do not know history and needed other ways of getting a good grade in the class went on to begin the challenge.

Most partakers went to a food chain with their assigned five day budget of $20 and their spirits dimmed further. After compiling all the foods they could afford for the week, they found that they certainly did not need that shopping cart they grabbed. Typical rations for many students consisted of a dismal can of oats or oatmeal to divide into fifths for breakfasts, some kind of cheap, plastic-like meat and bread for sandwiches to cry over at lunches and ramen cheaper and less healthy than dirt for each day’s final meal.

The actual challenge, once begun, was not as bad as expected for most people. Apparently, it becomes progressively easier to ignore the hunger, but that does not mean your classmates do not hear your stomach making drowning whale noises in the middle of class. The problems arise when students have sports games or other physical activities the same days they are eating just, say, 1000 calories. That means hardly any energy for the game and no recovery drink or snack afterwards.

All in all, the Food Stamp Challenge is a great idea. It gives people a new perspective of a situation that they are not used to and asks them to decide whether or not our government is doing enough for the less fortunate. While I support the challenge as a whole, I am not so sure it should be an extra credit assignment. That is essentially giving kids who are willing to starve themselves and endure physical pain (albeit very minimal) a boost over their classmates. I see the dilemma, however, because kids are even less likely to starve themselves if it will not even get them that grade boost. Ideally, the Food Stamp Challenge would be one of a couple options of assignments to get the extra credit.

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