If you’re a college student, or if you’ve ever known a college student, or if you live pretty much anywhere in North America, you’ve probably heard of the “Freshman Fifteen”-the not-so-mysterious weight gain that supposedly afflicts college freshmen. Researchers disagree as to whether this trend is real-some studies have shown it to be a myth while others have shown it to be real and remarkably widespread. Regardless of whether the phenomenon exists, however, one thing is certain: the food on the Washington University campus is not going to help students stay fit and healthy.
Some of the food served in the University’s dining facilities is truly appalling. The pasta with Alfredo and chicken, served in Bear’s Den, contains 1,211 calories and supplies the consumer with 123 percent of his daily saturated fat intake. Bear’s Den also offers a double cheeseburger containing 1,198 calories and a breakfast burrito containing 937 calories. Think you can avoid the caloric craziness by choosing a salad? Think again. A large Caesar salad contains 925 calories, 694 of them from fat. The worst offender of all is the chicken fingers, weighing in at a whopping 1,335 calories and providing 94 percent of your suggested daily sodium intake. These are not just a few extreme examples either as almost all of the entrees served in Bear’s Den are absurdly high in calories, saturated fat and cholesterol. In fact, Bear’s Den serves only nine entrees that contain less than 400 calories. (They serve over 40 entrees.) If you wanted to eat your way to cardiac arrest, this would undoubtedly be the place to do it.
That’s not to say, though, that it is impossible to eat healthfully here if you want to-there are many nutritious, wholesome dining options on campus, like pasta with marinara sauce, a tuna salad sandwich, the spicy black bean burger and several kinds of soup, all served in Bear’s Den.
Nutrition facts for the meals served on campus are available online and it is feasible to eat a balanced, healthful diet on campus if you’re willing to devote a considerable amount of time to determining what you will or will not eat in the dining halls.
The problem is not that healthful food options don’t exist. It’s that someone who isn’t meticulously careful about her diet could easily consume 4,000 calories in a day-a diet that, for most of us, could lead to extremely poor physical health.
College is not an environment that naturally fosters good health. According to the Nemours Foundation’s Center for Children’s Health Media, many aspects of college life can foster less than ideal health. Most college students no longer have the physical education requirements that they had in high school and, as a result, their level of exercise decreases. Many students keep salty and sugary snacks in their dorm rooms and often overindulge late at night or while studying. With so much newfound freedom and so many tempting foods available, the Nemours Center explains, many new college students find it hard to stick to a balanced, nutritious diet.
Of course, it is true that we are ultimately responsible for what we put into our own bodies, but choosing to eat in a dining hall on campus is not like choosing to eat in a fast food restaurant: many students, especially freshmen, do not have another more health-conscious dining venue where they can choose to eat on a regular basis. It should not be so easy for students to fall into dangerous eating habits. At the very least, all dining halls on campus should display nutritional information about the foods they serve.
Bon Appetit, the University’s food service management company, should be applauded for their commitment to environmental sustainability and to the use of local food products. Health-conscious students who eat in the dining halls should encourage Bon Appetit to expand their Healthy Cooking Initiative and make the foods that everyone likes to eat more healthful. In the meantime, log on to the dining services Web site at http://diningservices.wustl.edu to check out the nutrition facts for the meals served on campus and make informed decisions about what to eat.
Liz is a freshman in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at emklein@artsci.wustl.edu.