Emily B.

Junior, Journalism

My name is Emily Banaitis and in June 2018, I was diagnosed with multiple allergies including gluten, dairy, pork, beef, egg yolks, corn, and beans. Growing up, I ate very clean and stayed away from processed foods, red meat, etc. During my freshman year of college, I started seeing a fluctuation in my physical and mental state and after suffering from a severe allergy attack during my spring break, I realized I needed to seek help immediately. After multiple tests and finding out about my allergies I decided to become as informed as possible about my allergies and how they affected the body. After producing a twenty-page research paper on it my sophomore year, I now understand how eating a certain way can do significant damage on your body.As I have gone into my junior year, I have struggled a lot more with my mental health and I am slowly learning how to balance my new lifestyle and how that helps my mental health.I hope through my writing, I help to inform people about how health can play such a huge role in your body, while also informing people more about food allergies and how a lot of them contribute to auto-immune diseases.