Coming to college for the first time is a drastic lifestyle change that presents students with a difficult slew of challenges to face all at once. These include developing new relationships, dealing with the academic rigor of college courses, and making a home out of an unfamiliar environment. Roommate conflicts and maintaining long-distance relationships only pile on to these stresses.
It is thus not unexpected that college freshman are prone to feeling hopeless and lost when they arrive on campus.
A significant challenge college freshman must overcome is a complete change in their eating habits. More often than not, this shifts is from three well-balanced meals a day to fewer "meals" high in carbs, fat and sodium.
First-year students at Emory University are required to purchase a $5,000 unlimited meal plan that subjects them to eating at the dining hall for majority of their meals, lest their meal plan money go to waste. This is no different from many other schools like Wash U and GW, where meals plans are similarly expensive and often times mandatory.
One would expect that with such expensive meal plans and the limited dining options available to first-year students, dining halls would be committed to offering a vast variety of food options throughout each day.
Sadly, this is not the case. The fruit selection at my dining hall in inconsistent (I'm talking bruised apples and puny, over-ripe bananas). The pizza, burger, and french fry selection, however, is. So are items that simply need a good ol' deep-fry to prepare and serve-up (fried chicken or tofu, anyone?). There is a fully stocked salad bar, but as stocked as it is even a variety of cold vegetables can get tiring for two meals every day. Especially when it's the only healthy option you can count on being available.
Dining authorities on colleges campuses should understand that being thrown into a highly stressful, new environment is going to make healthy eating a lower priority for most first-year college students. That's why they should be more committed to letting college students make their own choices about where to eat, rather then limiting them to eating at campus dining halls where they are practically lured into making poor food choices. And if mandatory meal plans are necessary, they should make considerable efforts to make a variety of nutritious food options available 24/7. Colleges today seem to care more about their own convenience and benefit than the overall health of their burdened new student population.
Moreover, with the rising costs of tuition, more and more college students find themselves financially insecure. Understandably, food is not something they value spending money on. So when the dining halls close and these students are up studying late at night, they are going to resort to purchasing cheap, processed foods from vending machines conveniently located throughout campus. This is why in addition to obesity, malnourishment is on the rise among college students. A student may still maintain a normal daily calorie intake by eating a bag of Cheetos and Snickers in place of dinner, but this student is by no standard getting the nourishment he or she desperately needs.
Weight-gain and malnourishment can encroach upon the academic and social lives of first-year students.
Freshman are known to suffer most from body image issues, and students who don't receive enough nutrients a day are prone to losing the focus needed to succeed academically. Then why do college dining heads around the nation fail to implement healthier options for college students? Why must pizza and hamburgers be staples in the college dining halls? Are convenience and profits really more important than student health?
These are the questions we ought to address. College freshman already feel helpless. If colleges were more willing to help their first-year students make healthier choices, it could make all the difference.
Image borrowed from College Cranium
It is thus not unexpected that college freshman are prone to feeling hopeless and lost when they arrive on campus.
A significant challenge college freshman must overcome is a complete change in their eating habits. More often than not, this shifts is from three well-balanced meals a day to fewer "meals" high in carbs, fat and sodium.
First-year students at Emory University are required to purchase a $5,000 unlimited meal plan that subjects them to eating at the dining hall for majority of their meals, lest their meal plan money go to waste. This is no different from many other schools like Wash U and GW, where meals plans are similarly expensive and often times mandatory.
One would expect that with such expensive meal plans and the limited dining options available to first-year students, dining halls would be committed to offering a vast variety of food options throughout each day.
Sadly, this is not the case. The fruit selection at my dining hall in inconsistent (I'm talking bruised apples and puny, over-ripe bananas). The pizza, burger, and french fry selection, however, is. So are items that simply need a good ol' deep-fry to prepare and serve-up (fried chicken or tofu, anyone?). There is a fully stocked salad bar, but as stocked as it is even a variety of cold vegetables can get tiring for two meals every day. Especially when it's the only healthy option you can count on being available.
Dining authorities on colleges campuses should understand that being thrown into a highly stressful, new environment is going to make healthy eating a lower priority for most first-year college students. That's why they should be more committed to letting college students make their own choices about where to eat, rather then limiting them to eating at campus dining halls where they are practically lured into making poor food choices. And if mandatory meal plans are necessary, they should make considerable efforts to make a variety of nutritious food options available 24/7. Colleges today seem to care more about their own convenience and benefit than the overall health of their burdened new student population.
Moreover, with the rising costs of tuition, more and more college students find themselves financially insecure. Understandably, food is not something they value spending money on. So when the dining halls close and these students are up studying late at night, they are going to resort to purchasing cheap, processed foods from vending machines conveniently located throughout campus. This is why in addition to obesity, malnourishment is on the rise among college students. A student may still maintain a normal daily calorie intake by eating a bag of Cheetos and Snickers in place of dinner, but this student is by no standard getting the nourishment he or she desperately needs.
Weight-gain and malnourishment can encroach upon the academic and social lives of first-year students.
Freshman are known to suffer most from body image issues, and students who don't receive enough nutrients a day are prone to losing the focus needed to succeed academically. Then why do college dining heads around the nation fail to implement healthier options for college students? Why must pizza and hamburgers be staples in the college dining halls? Are convenience and profits really more important than student health?
These are the questions we ought to address. College freshman already feel helpless. If colleges were more willing to help their first-year students make healthier choices, it could make all the difference.
Image borrowed from College Cranium