Students Stave Off Exam Stress With Snacks

Lunch for Jacqueline N. Nkuebe ’10 is usually a reserved affair, normally comprising small portions of rice and chicken salad.

But during finals weeks, there’s no holding back.

“Yesterday, before my Life Sciences final, I had onion rings, fried chicken tenders off the charts, and a brownie—maybe it was two brownies—and some cookies,” Nkuebe said. “I was going to go get some ice cream after that, but I ran out of time before my exam.”

As the term draws to a close, Nkuebe is not the only student witnessing a drastic change in eating habits. According to Christopher Duggan, an associate professor in the Harvard School of Public Health’s (HSPH) department of nutrition, the pressing specter of exams has effects on the body that go beyond sweaty palms.

“The psychological stress of finals can result in significant alterations in eating, sleeping, and exercise patterns, which closely mimic what are thought of as more ‘physiologic’ stress patterns, such as starvation, illness, or infectious diseases,” Duggan wrote in an e-mail.

Such stress patterns, according to Duggan, can lead to either a lowered appetite or an increase in food consumption “as a response to the psychological stress of exams.” Nkuebe, it seems safe to say, is experiencing the latter.

But Duggan’s statement concerning the ambiguity of the appetite’s response to stress was borne out by other student testimony.

“I feel like a bite takes away a tiny piece of time that I can’t get back,” said Ryan A. Fitzgerald ’10, who, accompanied by his Math 21a notebook, was sitting down for his first meal of the day at 5:30 yesterday evening.

According to dining hall officials, however, most students don’t seem to be watching their time in the dining hall too closely.

When asked about exam-period trends in food consumption levels, Adams House cook Bill Nicolson cited an increase, jabbing a thumb into the air for emphasis.

Nicolson said the eating increase seems to be tied to simple scheduling logistics rather than psychological or physiological effects.

“Everybody’s around more than other weeks,” he said. “People don’t have to worry about running to get to class on time.”

Whatever the nature of the issue, simple discipline remains a key weapon against upticks in eating.

“My rule is to limit snacking to carrots and apples,” wrote Walter Willett, the HSPH’s Stare professor of epidemiology and nutrition, in an e-mail, referencing his own habits when faced with stress. “They provide something to munch on with only a few calories and positive nutrition.”

—Staff writer Christian B. Flow can be reached at cflow@fas.harvard.edu.