The Ronald Tutor Campus Center offers a variety of dining options for students on the menu, including the Seeds Marketplace. (Beth Mosch | Daily Trojan File Photo)
Freshman 15: It has become a universally accepted maxim that students view as a premonition of their inevitable weight gain in college. As a result, college students often come to school with low expectations about the quality of their food. Students often admit they only ate two meals that day or stocked up at local trader Joe’s to make up for the lack of healthy food available.
While some consider USC’s dining options to be sub-par while others consider them totally inadequate, USC lacks a diverse dining options, and in particular a wide variety of healthy options.
USC offers three dining rooms and a variety of eateries, including the six in the Ronald Tutor Campus Center: Seeds Marketplace, The Kitchen, Burger Crush, Panda Express, Verde, and C&G Co. While nine dining options at face value may seem appropriate, their hours are restrictive often leave students with only a few options. For example, C&G is closed on weekends and The Kitchen is closed indefinitely.
Students are at a crossroads because they pay such an exorbitant price for their meal plan but have so few options that meet the needs. For example, Seeds only offers nine lunch menus for students. Limited restaurants are good for unhealthy meals.
Students with dietary restrictions or health-conscious attitudes suffer. Ironically, USC hosted a faculty and staff zoom – the Healthy Habits Webinar Series – and a section that focused on Healthy Eating and Fitness on Campus. Some of their suggestions included ordering brown rice sushi or Super Greens from Seeds, choosing brown rice and mushroom chicken from Panda Express, adding guacamole to your bowl at Verde, and customizing an acai bowl from C&G to order Lower your sugar and calorie intake.
While USC is offering these Zoom sessions to educate students about healthy alternatives, it’s disappointing that their suggestions require actual payment. The Cardinal Meal Plan, the cheapest and most rudimentary meal plan, costs $ 3,315 per semester. Students shouldn’t be forced to pay extra money just to get nutritious meals every day. Conversely, students who are restricted to the meal plan shouldn’t be forced to eat the same bowl of Verde or the same protein smoothie from C&G just because these are the only seemingly healthy options.
Students’ mood, study habits, and stamina all depend on what they put into their bodies. There are a number of studies that investigate whether there is a causal relationship between diet and school performance.
For example, Michelle D. Florence, Mark Asbridge, and Paul J. Veugelers, faculty members at Dalhousie University, conducted a study to examine the impact of nutritional quality on academic performance. They concluded that there is a link between nutritional quality and academic performance in school-age children, demonstrating the importance of schools offering healthy eating options early in a child’s development.
In addition, a longitudinal study of weight gain in freshmen found that the freshman 15 phenomenon has some validity. The researchers found that “First year students gained an average of 1.36 kg (3 pounds) (CI: 1.15-1.57) over a period of 6 weeks to 8 months”. They also concluded that 60.9% of freshmen gained weight, with 9.3% of freshmen gaining at least 15 pounds.
When freshman students find their hold and slowly adjust to new eating and fitness plans, the weight gain is – to some extent – both predictable and understandable. This can be exacerbated by students’ tendency to stress-eat when they are overwhelmed with work. While USC could maneuver this by offering courses on healthy eating habits, gaining weight on such a large scale is worrying and needs to be addressed.
The above studies establish why USC should offer healthier options to better serve students in academic and social settings. Aside from the general importance of a healthy palette, college students begin to develop and hone their daily habits, and these habits often exceed their four years and are reflected in their adult lives. Unsurprisingly, studies show unhealthy college eating habits are a contributing factor to the obesity epidemic that is sweeping the United States.
USC has the power to include more dining options on its meal plans while offering more healthier alternatives that would allow students to prioritize their health. You say college is the beginning of the rest of your life, so shouldn’t we be able to start this life healthy?
source https://www.bisayanews.com/2021/10/01/diverse-dining-options-are-necessary-for-student-health/
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