Your Diet: How College May Affect Your Eating Habits

Photo of unhealthy food piled upon a checkered red-and-white cloth Stock image from stock.adobe.com

Gabriel Gonzalez

Student Life Editor

You don’t need some lengthy study or statistic to tell you that the diet of a college student is usually made up of fast food, sugar and ramen. And that isn’t necessarily their fault. Between going to class, studying for quizzes and tests, actually completing the various assignments and lacking funds, students are placed between a rock and a hard place when it concerns diet. And as it turns out, diet is pretty damn important.

Joel Fuhrman, MD, a board-certified physician focused on nutrition, has done a multitude of research on the subject, laying down the lines on why we eat the way we eat: “In early humans, this stimulus (sugar) helped lead them to calorie-rich foods, which aided survival when food was scarce. But now, this primitive drive contributes to our epidemics of obesity and diabetes,” (Negative Effects of Sugar on the Brain). Sugar is a prime example. Not only does the substance have drug-like effects on reward centers in the brain, making it harder to limit or quit consumption, but it also has negative effects on cognition, including decreased self-control and cognitive skills. That isn’t a great thing to have as a participant in academia.

The worst part is that sugar is in everything; everything convenient. As we covered before, students almost always want the most quickest option, to give them time to work on more pressing matters. That’s why fast food, full of frankly ridiculous amounts of sugar and sodium, is such a popular facet of the college diet. Who has time to cook a meal? And for that matter, who has the money?

Healthy, nutritious meals bring up another level of concern: price. You’re broke. And if you’re not broke, you’re in the minority. What little money students have, they need for transportation, technology, tuition and books, Essentially, there is not a lot left over to buy fresh produce, grass-fed beef and free-range chicken cutlets.

I asked around to get an opinion from the student body and got this from Asha Garcia, graphic design major: “Normally I would cook my meals, but with my schedule I have to settle for something convenient and unhealthy.” She then added, “So the food on campus can be pretty expensive,” (almost five dollars for a slice of pizza, are you kidding?), “but a soda is two dollars, and I can’t spend so much money on healthy food.”

It’s not as if every student has this problem, as there are ways to keep on a good course without tons of time and cash. Sam Pride, accounting major said, “Every day I go to Wawa for lunch, and I get either a rice bowl with beans or a salad.”

But for those that do struggle with diet, there are ways to combat it. Set up a budget for your weekly spending. If you’re a commuter and live with your parents, eat in often. Avoid sugar and avoid snacking. One of the easiest and cheapest strategies to keep you on track (if it’s free, it’s for me) is an app by the name of Yuka. Yuka is available for download on most devices, scanning barcodes on items within its database to lock down what’s healthy and what’s not. It’s been great for me.

For me, diet is a huge issue. It dictates your health in more ways than you could imagine with many illnesses sprouting up from deficiencies you might not even be aware of. It even has an effect on your mood. Eat shit, feel shit. So take care of yourself. When it comes to that, the only one you can count on is you.