College is a time of transitioning into independence, which can leave students unsure of how to stay healthy. University of Colorado Boulder student Susan Morrell is spreading her knowledge by educating students on how to adopt life-long healthy eating habits.
By participating in the Healthy Food fellowship, which is run by the nonprofit Net Impact and sponsored by the Newman’s Own Foundation, Morrell is teaching a mini-series to the sororities at CU. During this series, Morrell discusses issues faced by all undergraduate students, but gears her talks toward sorority members.
“They are under a lot of pressure to conform to discriminatory body standards,” she said.
For some students, college can seem like a difficult time to develop life-long eating habits with temptations like late-night pizza runs and the difficulty of planning regular workouts. However, Morrell believes with disciplined eating, studying, sleeping and exercise, students can make living healthy a habit.
Morrell explained that students struggle to find healthy options in the dining halls and for dorm room snacks. Students are also struggling to find nutritious pre- and post-workout snacks within the clutter of health-food marketing, driven by buzz words like “protein” or “gluten-free.” Morrell explained that these marketing ploys can entice students to purchase products that aren’t necessarily the best source of nutrition.
Another big concern of students is dieting, specifically of how to diet without feeling deprived. Morrell said, the line between a healthy diet and disordered eating can often become blurred with the pressure to get into shape. Some research shows that 20 to 25 percent of occasional dieters developed an eating disorder.
A huge barrier students have to overcome, Morrell said, is food education. Our country’s lack of formal food education is creating a vicious cycle where students are “thrown into this quasi-adulthood stage and don’t really have any sort of advice or education” and are expected to learn, Morrell said. This continues on when these young adults become parents and don’t know how to educate their children. When unhealthy eating habits develop in college, it can be challenging to create positive ones afterward, Morrell said.
Morrell raised the question of why the United States is not mandating schools to teach a nutrition course when they focus so much on ensuring that engineering students take a history credit or that science students fulfill an English requirement. Everyone needs to eat and everyone needs to know the basics of nutrition, Morrell said. She believes that without formal knowledge about how to eat healthily, our country is furthering the high rates of obesity. Studies confirm her fears, showing that over one-third of the U.S. population is obese.
Lack of food education creates barriers that students have to overcome in order to develop life-long healthy eating habits. Americans need more knowledge on grocery shopping, cooking, exercise, nutrition timing, relationships with food, everyday diet misconceptions and eco-dieting, Morrell said. These are the topics she discusses during her mini-series. She is hoping to teach the women she talks to how to grocery shop and cook healthy meals in a time efficient and budget-friendly way.
Morrell stressed the importance of planning meals into a student’s schedule. Students often don’t account for long stretches of class, which can force them to miss meals.
“[When you get home] you’re going to over-eat because you’re going to have starved yourself,” Morrell said. “People over-exercise to compensate for over-eating,” she said in reference to the dangers of missing meals and binge-eating.
Morrell explained that planning meals involves thinking about the activity you are doing and how you can properly fuel your body for it.
“When students are studying, really great foods are crunchy foods because they are stimulating for the brain,” Morrell said. “There is research that suggests [apples] can be as awakening to you as drinking a cup of coffee.” Other nutritious snacks Morrell recommends are carrots, apples and peanut butter, coconut chips, hot tea with cinnamon, yogurt with cocoa powder and dark chocolate.
There are many reasons students struggle with eating healthy, Morrell said.
“You get a lot of people who maybe weren’t raised in a household that valued healthy eating. Some people just don’t care, they want what tastes good, and then some people have issues with access and affordability,” she said.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Carlisle Olsen at caol0448@colorado.edu.
