The “Gbalanced Diet” Pandemic Among Students in Nigeria’s Fess and Bess
Growing up, we memorised the meaning of a balanced diet. We even had carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, and minerals, all marching neatly in our notebooks, each with its role in building a healthy body. We recited their importance with confidence, as if we would one day faithfully apply them. However, university life has a way of rewriting that knowledge. Somewhere between tight budgets, long lectures, and the daily struggle to “manage”, those carefully learnt food classes disappear, replaced by a more practical curriculum: what is available, what is affordable, and what can last till the end of the week. Somewhere between ambition and account balance, students in Nigeria’s “fess and Bess” university have quietly invented a new food group: survival. It is called the gbalanced diet, a carefully unbalanced rotation of meals that somehow convinces its followers they are doing just fine. After all, is it not rice? And is rice not food? Case closed. In this system, variety is a ...