Well into my teenage years, my mother and I battled — but not over typical things like clothing or curfews. We battled over how many scoops of ice cream I could have at dinner each night.

Back then, I ran track, and I have always been one of those annoying people who just has a fast metabolism, so the ice cream never really caused more than bickering with my mother.

But just because I wasn’t overweight doesn’t mean I was healthy. Though being thin and being healthy often overlap, that’s not always the case.

My love of cookie dough ice cream and my aversion to cooking meant during college, I had to make some tough choices. Correction: I should have made some tough choices.

Instead, I forbid myself from buying cookie dough ice cream but regularly had actual cookie dough in my fridge. (Yes, I am aware of the potential health risks involved in that.)

Needless to say, it was a lateral move at best.

Most nights during college, I ate a frozen meal of dinner, well exceeding my suggested sodium intake for the day, and ate cookie dough for dessert, well exceeding my suggested sugar intake for the day.

Again, I’m the annoying person with a high metabolism, so not much happened as a result of it, but still, it could hardly be considered healthy.

I had no desire to change my eating habits because they fit my hectic schedule.

But my junior year, I was scared into change thanks to a documentary I watched on Netflix titled “Fed Up.”

If you want to be scared into watching how much sugar you eat for the rest of your life, watch that documentary. Even if half of it is true, we’re all still in so much health trouble due to the amount of sugar in our diets.

Since the night I watched it, I have tried my best to make my own meal in a Crock-Pot so that I can try to control how much sugar I eat. Each trip to the grocery store results in a lot of label checking.

I now am happy to say no cookie dough can be found in my apartment.

And all of that change sprung from watching that one documentary.

While I was trying to find a Crock-Pot meal each week and at least trying to limit the amount of cookie dough I ate, my best friend rolled his eyes at me, snickered and just kept eating all that sugar.

Well, he watched that documentary for the first time last week and has since checked the sugar content on everything he has bought, only eating six skittles worth of sugar for more than a week.

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily make either of us healthy.

I still eat more frozen meals than I should and am therefore way exceeding my sodium intake. But I’ll try to find a documentary on sodium intake soon.

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Sarah Mahan is a staff writer for The Vicksburg Post. You may reach her at sarah.mahan@vicksburgpost.com. Readers are invited to submit their opinions for publication.