Healthy Food

The Freshman 15

By Kingsley Hubble · The Mainstream
Published Fubruary 22, 2012

Undesirable at Any Age

Healthy food choices can be so difficult to make that time-stressed college students often simply avoid them. 

For example, the time-stressed student arrives on campus at 7 a.m. needing to eat before his next class, but time is running out. He walks into the cafeteria and evaluates all of the choices that might tame his appetite.

Thanks to the thick, savory smell of rotisserie hot dogs combined with the biscuits and gravy aroma, the big bowls of fruit hardly stand a chance. The temptation of comfort food overpowers stressed-out students pressed for time. They grab a tray, indulge in a tatertot basket and a breakfast burrito, open one of the refrigerator doors and yank out an energy drink.

The final temptation, at the cashier, is one more delectable assortment of bakery goods designed to catch the eye: the cinnamon rolls, cookies and muffins. Who can resist?

Some students try to eat healthy, but long-instilled habits are hard to break.

“I always start my day with a few cups of coffee and usually don’t eat until noon or so,” said Rich, currently a business major.

Although healthy diets are tricky, good food choices can also become a habit. The healthy student walks in the cafeteria in the morning slammed with the same homework and deadlines and smells the breakfast burritos and biscuits and gravy in a different way. The smells are a little gross when you’re used to eating less fat and sugar.

He passes up the hot dogs and tatertots for a banana and an orange. After the heated stainless steel case, there is relief for this person with an assortment of healthy choices in the form of sandwiches that may include tuna fish or turkey.

With the food hunting journey nearly done, a choice of refreshment is necessary. In the healthy student’s mind, there are only a few acceptable choices available: the energy drinks, soda, and chocolate milk are not among them. He will pick water, vitamin water, white milk or an Odwalla drink; this student breezes right by the bakery goods with no further purchases, continuing to the left to make a swift exit to enjoy a healthy meal.

Eating healthy may take willpower and time, but the benefits are worthwhile. It is important for people to know that anyone can achieve good health no matter what the situation.
The emotional benefits of eating healthy are impressive. Healthy eaters are generally in a better mood and less likely to become depressed. There is also more of a chance that they will be less irritable.
“If you are eating healthy, emotional and physical are interrelated, so if you choose to eat healthy for fitness purposes your body is going to respond by feeling better,” said Cheryl Yoder, UCC’s athletic director.

Calorie counts for popular food choices

The Mainstream is a student publication of Umpqua Community College.