UNDER THE ARCH

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Edited by MARIAM KHAN and STACIA DATSKOVSKA

Flaca o gorda: My struggle with pandemic weight gain

NATALIE OLAYA

An exploration of the impact a global pandemic can have on one’s body and self-image.

by LORRAINE OLAYA Copy Chief

Content warning: This piece discusses weight gain and body image issues.

I stand in front of the mirror, my hands on the jeans bunched up around my thighs. They refuse to be pulled up any higher. My fingers struggle, but I am determined to wear the size 00 jeans that used to fit me perfectly a year ago. Finally, after enough tugging, they work their way up.

The pandemic forced me to stay at home, where homecooked meals and snacks were available in steaming pots and cupboards when I was hungry. I spent my quarantine days lying or sitting down. And with the belief that I didn’t need to work out since I was still underweight, I began gaining a significant amount of weight, which had never happened to me before.

“I just have a fast metabolism,” was my answer to how I stayed thin. I was the kid who’d hear “you’re so skinny,” “you should eat more” and “are you sure you’re not anorexic?” all the time. Thumbs and middle fingers wrapped around my wrists, and pointer fingers pointed at my ribs.

I was always 80 to 90 pounds of bony elbows and knees. It bothered me when I had to spend hours looking for clothes small enough to fit and drinking nutritional shakes to put on pounds. But aside from wanting to gain weight, I never took issue with mine — and I didn’t expect that finally gaining some would change my self-image. After a year of the pandemic, and still lacking the motivation to start working out, I’m unsure and insecure about my weight, even though I shouldn’t be.

Staring down at the numbers on the scale in June 2020 was the first time I saw how much weight I gained since the start of the pandemic — 104 pounds. I’d surpassed the 100-pound mark, which I’d never accomplished before. “I’m finally a normal weight,” I beamed.

My curves grew in, stretch marks sprouted, stomach rolls packed on like stacked hot dog buns.

But then I barely fit into my shorts. The grey ones that used to be so big on me that I needed a belt were now tight around my waist. Sitting down was a new nightmare, with the hems digging into my thighs.

In June 2021, the numbers on the scale said 114 pounds.

Some days I long for the flat stomach I used to have, others I feel happy in my skin. My weight gain has invaded my thoughts, haunting me now and then. The clothes and bathing suits that don’t fit me anymore are stuffed in a box under my bed along with the hope that I’ll be able to fit into them again one day. When I’m hungry and haven’t eaten in a while, I sometimes let myself wallow in hunger pangs for a couple more hours. I don’t prevent myself from eating, but rather just put it off, in the hope of eating less. And since I never felt like I had to work out before, I struggle to make exercise a habit. I know this isn’t healthy. It’s dangerous. I’ve never worried about my weight this much.

Gaining weight in a way that I had never experienced before impacted my mental health. In the Latine community, weight is a frequent topic of conversation, and the bodies of Latin American women are commented on by everyone. Families, friends, even strangers make remarks like “estás muy flaca, porque no comes mas,” or “estás gordita, deja de comer.” We are constantly sexualized and objectified because of our curves and how we look. I know I’m not the only Latine woman who has been told not to walk around older men in revealing clothing. It’s clear that being too skinny or being too fat is deemed undesirable by society. But in reality, weight fluctuation is human.

Commuting on foot was something that I lost while in quarantine; as a New Yorker, it had been my sole form of daily exercise. Now, I’m making small changes to my diet and doing light physical activity. It’s minimal progress, even when combined with learning to love my body and change my self-perception — but it’s helping me feel more comfortable and beautiful in my skin.

I should love my body; I’m at a healthy weight, but sometimes I feel much chubbier than I look. I’m not alone. According to the American Psychological Association report “Stress in America,” 42% of U.S. adults have reported unintentional weight gain. Among these adults, women, Gen Z and Hispanics have reported more undesired weight gain than their counterparts. The report found that 52% of Gen Z adults (ages 18 - 24), 46% of Hispanic adults and 45% of women reported inadvertent weight gain — each a category I find myself in, as a 19-year-old Latine woman.

While it’s a constant struggle coming to terms with my rapid and unfamiliar weight gain, knowing that others are also dealing with similar repercussions in a post-pandemic world gives me some comfort. Hopefully, returning to campus and pre-pandemic routines will help us feel a bit more comfortable in our skin.

From Walter Reed to Ph.D.: how a motorcycle crash catalyzed an NYU professor’s chemistry career

By IVY ZHU UTA Senior Editor

With only six and a half months left of his time in the U.S. Army, John Michael Halpin woke up in a hospital bed at Walter Reed Medical Center with a shattered left wrist, fractured pelvis, broken shoulder, head trauma and abdominal lesions from surgeries.

His motorcycle had collided with a telephone pole as he headed back to the base on a typical off-duty night in the 1970s with a couple of friends. He drifted in and out of consciousness for days, not waking up until a week after the crash.

“I can remember being woken up a couple of times and not really knowing where I was or anything like that. It was a gradual thing,” Halpin said.

Recovery is still ongoing, according to Halpin. Nerve damage and restricted movement in his wrist still prevents him from performing tasks like lifting heavier objects with his left hand. Scars cover his abdomen as a result of surgery on a damaged intestinal tract. As he reflects on his time in Walter Reed, he remains grateful for his successful surgery.

“I was in the hospital with another victim of a motorcycle accident who lost both his legs,” Halpin said. “You know, I was extraordinarily lucky.”

The recovery period consisted of surgeries and waiting as he transitioned back and forth from the main hospital to a second facility a few miles away. Halpin spent months alternating between the two facilities with nothing but books to keep him company.

“It pretty much sucked,” Halpin said. “It was very painful. It was kind of a lonely time.”

Lying awake in the hospital, he began contemplating his future. Without the Army, what was he supposed to do now? ***

“The Army seemed like a good way to move forward,” Halpin said. “It turned out that it was, though not in the way I had foreseen.”

Throughout his youth, Halpin’s family never emphasized the importance of education. Instead, they believed that with the arrival of high school graduation, job hunting began. As a result, Halpin was surrounded by the mindset that he would have to always dread going to work, as had been his parents’ experience. He didn’t fully grasp the true meaning of a career at that time.

Now a professor at NYU, Halpin teaches general chemistry to first-year students, but it was not an easy journey for him. From the outside, he appears like any other professor as he travels from lectures to meetings and works on his administrative duties. However, he comes from a background that is a bit different from most of his peers in higher education — Halpin is a first-generation college student.

“Things changed as I got into academia and immersed myself in my education, and then that turned into graduate school. And that turned into teaching at the university level,” Halpin said. ***

Halpin entered vocational rehabilitation for his undergraduate degree soon after his accident. To prove he was ready for college, he took remedial classes through an individualized employment program for workers with disabilities. The program covered his educational costs and provided him with a living stipend, an opportunity that was more important to him than any rehabilitation he was undergoing.

After spending two years at Hudson Valley Community College and one year at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Halpin transferred to NYU.

At this point, Halpin was taking classes in math, physics and chemistry. During his senior year at NYU, Halpin conducted undergraduate research for a young assistant professor and decided that he wanted to continue working for him after completing his undergraduate degree. He applied for graduate school at NYU and was accepted.

Unfortunately, during graduate school, the young assistant professor he was working for was denied tenure and left NYU, forcing Halpin to switch graduate advisors. Despite the sudden change, he was still grateful to his new advisor for accepting and teaching him. His undergraduate years had involved many transfers between schools, but graduate school allowed Halpin to focus on the subject he loved and meet people with similar interests. One of them would become his wife. They now teach chemistry together.

Initially, Halpin aspired to be a chemical engineer. As he took more science courses, though, he began to see how much his professors enjoyed the work that they were doing.

“I realized the engineers weren’t having as much fun as my college professors,” Halpin said. “My chemistry professors would be there at 8 o’clock and they were 75 years old and hadn’t left yet. I want to be 75 years old and not want to quit either.”

During graduate school, Halpin juggled working as a TA at NYU along with teaching positions at Long Island University in Brooklyn, the Borough of Manhattan Community College, and a tutoring center.

Working with his tutoring students spurred his development as an educator, forcing him to study harder and get better at explaining concepts. The instant feedback students gave him ensured that he knew right away when his teaching wasn’t effective.

“These kids weren’t afraid to tell me what they thought,” Halpin said. “One of them would look at me and say, ‘You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.’”

Becoming a professor had not been among Halpin’s aspirations, but the path he took and the decisions he made led him to teaching.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN MICHAEL HALPIN | WSN

A portrait of Dr. John Michael Halpin.

His interest in chemistry persisted throughout his academic journey. He completed his master’s in chemistry, then a chemistry Ph.D., then a master’s in science education. The university was also a consistent presence; Halpin received four of his five degrees from NYU and was made a clinical professor in the NYU chemistry department.

Since then, Halpin has received extensive recognition for his teaching, including the NYU Distinguished Teaching Award in 2017. It began, though, with the education he began to pursue after the crash.

Halpin says he owes the first foundational step of his first-generation story to his motorcycle accident. He believes that, while random events like his will happen in life, it’s how you turn those events around that makes you who you are. Being a disabled veteran could have been no more than a hardship, but this status allowed him to access educational opportunities that completely transformed his life.

“He had the ability. He had the skill set, and he pursued it,” Donald McManus, a New York state vocational rehabilitation counselor, said. “If you don’t have a certain passion about what you want to do, what’s the point?”

With the possibility of new financial aid from the government, nothing stopped Halpin from pursuing an education.

“You’re not telling the story of a veteran,”McManus said. “You’re telling the story of a human being, who made his life choices.”

When first-year NYU students attend their first day of class with Professor Halpin, it’s incredibly powerful for them to learn that their professor was a first-generation college student. Talking about his accident and academic journey allows him to connect with students.

“It’s in sharing these stories and experiences that it creates these connections that otherwise would have never existed,” said Deana Stafford of the Center for First-generation Student Success. “And so in Professor Halpin, leading with agency around his experience, it provides not only an example but [an] opportunity to students who might find themselves in a similar position.”

In a small Zoom window, Halpin teaches general chemistry to an audience of 700 undergraduate students. Even through a virtual setting with such a large class size, Halpin still manages to leave a lasting impact on many of his students.

Emily Zhang, a former student of Halpin’s, believes that his experiences contribute to the quality of his character. Being a first-generation college student allows Halpin to understand where many students come from and the difficulties they may face, and Zhang remembers how inspiring it was to hear that her professor was first-generation.

“Dr. Halpin is so loved by his students because of his compassion and forgiveness,” Zhang wrote in an email. “He is very understanding of the difficult nature of college courses and gives his students second chances to succeed. I think his story is very inspiring and shows that even in the face of adversity, we should persevere and stay optimistic.” “By no means would I say it was a good thing that Halpin went through the ordeal, but what is good, what we as students and colleagues take with pride, is the extraordinary devotion to learning, chemistry, and his career that has brought Halpin to where he is today and is what radiates from him every day on the NYU campus,” Adhithya Vijayathevar, another of Halpin’s former students, wrote.

Though the motorcycle accident could easily have been much worse than it was, Halpin looks at it in a different light. If it weren’t for the collision, he wouldn’t have received life-changing educational opportunities.

“I realized that in life, a degree would mean something,” Halpin said. “Little did I know that the college education would change my entire perspective on life and my entire perspective on the world — it’s much more than getting a degree.”

To him, being inquisitive about the world around you is the most important part of education.

“I am totally interested in learning things for the rest of my life,” Halpin said. “I enjoy even the most trivial things, like watching water boil, because I understand what’s going on at the molecular level. It just changes you. And that’s what was important. It made me into a more perceptive, deeper-thinking, happier person.”

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