To be a student at the University is to be among the vanguard of intellectual, physical and cultural sophistication in America. Groups of well-dressed young men and women earnestly discussing their latest problem sets; pairs of splendidly fit runners going about their daily exercise routines and troupes of musicians practicing together at dusk are all sights that are much more common within the University than outside of its boundaries. Yet in at least one major way, University students fail to distinguish themselves from, and may even lag behind, the rest of American society. Poor eating habits - ranging from an undue reliance on fast food and snacks to the startling irregularity with which many students partake in meals - often go unnoticed because these habits typically manifest themselves behind closed doors in dormitories and apartments. These tendencies nevertheless threaten to undermine the otherwise exemplary lifestyles of those at the University. Although quick, cheap and tasty food has long been considered a paragon of college life, University students must recognize the long-term personal and social costs of such a diet and use the tremendous resources at their disposal to alter what has become a dark underside to life at the University.
University students' eating habits - and those of Americans overall - can be broken down into two general categories: what and how individuals eat. College students are usually drawn to foods that are inexpensive and require very little preparation and clean-up time. For example, college students have long been defined by their consumption of ramen noodles, an item that can be bought in bulk at most supermarkets - often in microwaveable packaging. Ramen noodles exemplify a broad swath of cheap food items such as Pop-Tarts and potato chips favored by students because it can be eaten directly from disposable packages and because it is portable.
The issue of portability hints at the second problem with student eating: fewer and fewer individuals are taking the time to eat regular, wholesome meals three times a day and instead snack between classes or while engaged in other academic and extracurricular tasks. This predicament is particularly troubling because neglecting to eat full meals at regular intervals means students are less likely to consume nutritious foods like fruit, vegetables and whole grains. Instead, students often resort to ingesting empty calories in many popular snack foods.
These vices have traditionally been accepted as the natural by-products of stress and budget constraints of college life. The reality, however, is that University students are in a much better position to adopt healthy diets than most Americans are. Because they come from more privileged backgrounds, most students can easily afford to spend slightly more on foods such as fresh produce from the farmer's market or herbs and spices to prepare home meals. Furthermore, it is more cost-efficient to prepare and eat regularly-scheduled meals, but more time-consuming. It would not be hard, though, to incorporate cooking into students' schedules because they have the luxury of flexible operating hours at the University's libraries and fitness facilities. It is even easier for students to eat three square meals a day if they have a meal plan because they do not have to prepare their food or clean up after themselves.
Maintaining a balanced and nutritious diet benefits students in several ways. For one, students do not need to mortgage their long-term health to pay for short-term conveniences. Consuming more fruit and vegetables but fewer fats and sugars mean students must spend slightly more money on groceries and spend more time on food preparation. These costs, however, are considerably lower than those associated with diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease - all ailments caused by poor diets. Additionally, students can nurture a stronger appreciation for both nature and culture by considering the nutritional characteristics and the historical backgrounds of the foods that they eat.
A shift in the way University students consider their food intake will not immediately cause the societal shift America so desperately needs to escape the vicious cycle of overeating and malnutrition that threatens to triple the rate of diabetes in the nation and push national healthcare expenditures to more than 30 percent of gross domestic product by 2050. It will, however, instill within students the sense of discipline and humility that comes with enjoying food for what it is rather than what one thinks it should be. With this changed mindset, students will once again establish themselves as the models of self-improvement that Thomas Jefferson hoped the University would prepare them to be.
Matt Cameron's columns appear Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at m.cameron@cavalierdaily.com.
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