Leana Abusneineh

5106737184
913340310
[email protected]
Transferring into UC Davis, I felt the general anxiety that other transfer students
experienced moving to a 4-year institution from a community college. I felt an additive layer of
anxiety, one filled with uncertainty and self-doubt, caused by previous battles with an eating
disorder (ED), depression and anxiety in high school and community college. In 2015, a year
before I entered UC Davis, I was hospitalized and clinically diagnosed with anorexia nervosa.
My treatment included living in a residential unit, meeting with a counselor weekly, and being
open with my friends and family. Recovery seemed impossible. While I continue to struggle
today, my family, counselors and dietitian helped me realize my true potential to succeed despite
these challenges. Upon entering UC Davis, I believed that my struggles with depression and
recovery with my ED would hold me back from succeeding. Looking back, my strong work
ethic, the community that I cultivated here on campus, and my desire to work with those with
similar circumstances, became my drive to excel in school and be a valuable asset to other teens
who battle similar struggles. It is for this reason that I hope to become a Registered Dietitian,
who works specifically with adolescents and teenagers who struggle with ED and mental illness.
I am currently majoring in Clinical Nutrition and minoring in psychology, two fields that
I believe are critical to my career path and are interrelated, especially as they relate to eating
disorders and mental illness. As a Registered Dietitian, having a background in nutrition,
physiology and psychology are important to understand common disorders among teenagers and
adolescents, a vulnerable population. While I am interested in research, I aim to work hands-on
with patients at a residential unit, where teenagers receive treatment for their ED. Once I
graduate from UC Davis, I plan to take a year off to work in the clinical field, take the DTR
exam to become a Dietetic technician, pursue a Dietetic internship, and prepare for graduate
programs in Human Nutrition. My rigorous courses, research experiences, as well as my
extracurricular and community service opportunities, all equipped me with the necessary tools in
the field of nutrition while helping me shape my future career and personal development goals.
During my first year, I joined the Student Nutrition Association (SNA) and became an
active member immediately. The organization provided necessary resources and volunteer
services, including the UC Davis Pantry, Heather House, and Davis Community Meals. Not only
was I excited to be a part of these projects, I applied to be their new Event Coordinator the
following year in order to gain experience in creating and promoting programs that would
encourage students to learn about nutrition, food, and health. My duties as Event Coordinator
included: planning and promoting new events weekly, contacting professional speakers, handling
logistics on the day of the events, and working with a team to make sure things run smoothly.
We attend the Heather House weekly, a homeless women’s shelter in Fairfield, to give nutrition
lessons and cooking demo for the women there. Volunteering with the Heather House and being
an active member of SNA has given me public speaking skills, organizational and networking
skills with students, speakers, and community members, and instilled in me a desire to work
directly with community members on nutrition and diet, especially underserved communities.
Working at the UCD Medical Center Burn ICU as a clinical nutrition intern gave me a
glimpse of the daily activities of a Registered Dietitian. My role was to assist the Registered
Dietitians with the meal orders for the patients and assisting the nurses with delivering the meals
to the patients. There was one experience that impacted me the most. Due to his injuries, one of
our patient’s consistently refused meals since he struggled with ingesting food. However, one
day during dinner time, he called for me to give him a meal tray. Since this was the first time he
has asked since being admitted, the nurse gave me permission to deliver his food to him and help
him with eating it. While assisting him, he told me his story leading up to his admittance to the
hospital. He told me about his struggles growing up with substance abuse and mental illness, and
that his latest suicide attempt is what landed him in the hospital. My interaction with him alone
fortified my desire to work with youth, who struggle with mental illnesses, in diet and nutrition.
My involvement with RIVER (Recognizing Illnesses Very Early and Responding) as a
Nutrition Intern gave me insight on working with underserved communities in local Sacramento.
As a group, RIVER focuses on disease prevention and health promotion by working with health
professionals in nutrition, elementary school kids, and low-income communities. I was trained
by Linda Adams, a Registered Dietitian, on how to counsel patients. Every Friday, we attended
Bret Harte Elementary School in West Sacramento to give students lessons on diet, nutrition, and
exercise in a program we created called “Healthy Heroes.” The students were excited and always
full of energy every time we visited their campus, especially since there were very few of these
programs that worked with their school. We also visited various clinics, including the Joan Viteri
Memorial Clinic in Sacramento, where we provide nutrition education and counseling to
uninsured communities recovering from drug addiction. This clinical experience not only gave
me the skillset and training to work as a dietitian, but allowed me to uplift and give back to the
community. RIVER gave me exposure to the clinical and community sectors of nutrition, by
allowing me to work with underserved communities and children, to make new connections with
professional staff, and to work effectively on a team.
One of my most memorable experiences here at UC Davis is a winter seminar abroad trip
to Nepal in 2017. With two other UCD students and two Nepalese students, we worked on a
project where we redesigned a Health Post, aided with waste management, and improved health
education materials in the rural village of Macchapucchre. Since the Fall, we communicated via
video chat to plan for our trip in the winter, where we spent three weeks in Nepal strategizing
with Nepalese students, professors, staff, nurses, and community members on health education
and the health post. One valuable thing I learned is that, rather than acting as the saviors of the
Nepalese community, they must guide us to what they believe is best for them. Our input might
be valuable for the community, however, if we do not take into account what they want, the
program may not be sustainable once we leave. I recognized through this experience, that
community work is often about empowering a community and recognizing its agency, not to
save them. Reflecting back to my experiences with the homeless women in the Heather House,
the patient at the UCDMC, the students at Bret Harte, and patients at the clinics, I realized that
my academics, training, and involvement was always about empowering others to change the
course of their lives. This is what my nurses, dietitians, and friends and family did for me while
receiving treatment at the residential unit.
My experiences as a Clinical Nutrition major, courses in psychology, networking with
health care professionals, and community involvement with the local Sacramento community
and abroad, have well equipped me to embark on my new journey to graduate UC Davis and
become a Registered Dietitian. While my journey began early on with researching the health
benefits of celery, while struggling with anorexia nervosa, this curiosity evolved into a passion
and drive to help people live healthier lifestyles, especially communities who may lack access to
quality food and care for treating eating and mental disorders. While receiving treatment for a
battle I never believed I would beat, my nurses, dietitian, counselor, friends and family
empowered me to be confident and to find purpose, and I found that at UC Davis through
working with others on health and nutrition. Thus, my career path as an aspiring Registered
Dietitian will allow me to empower adolescents and teenagers to create meaning and purpose in
their own lives.