Students who move out of their homes for college face a challenge that, a lot of times, isn’t there when they live at home: eating healthy.
Once students get to college, it becomes more important to stay healthy because they take on the stress of school.
For me, my mom would make me meals when I lived at home. Once I moved out on my own, it was harder to eat healthy because I didn’t have the money or time to make healthy foods. I found myself eating a lot of cereal and toast, which isn’t bad in moderation, but I wasn’t getting the necessary nutrition.
An article in the USU Statesman by Eric Jungblut titled “No Coke for USU” announced the university is taking action to ban unhealthy beverages to create a healthier campus. Dixie State University, on the other hand, is slacking on the matter.
DSU should encourage a healthy lifestyle by providing students with more nutritious and affordable snack options around campus.
Another option could be to ban soda and junk food. Creating healthy food choices for students at DSU is only a small part of the health and well being of the students.
Just recently, DSU banned smoking on campus, which is a step in the right direction for creating a healthy campus. Smoking is banned now, so junk food should be too.
Eating healthy at DSU is a constant struggle when healthy foods are so expensive and time consuming. Most vegetables, meats and nutritious grains take time to cook, which makes it hard for busy students to cook those things.
It is much easier to throw a Pop Tart in the toaster. Some students are on campus for 10 hours a day, and a lot of students wish there were healthier options that were easy to find.
H.U.M.A.N. Healthy Vending is a company that provides schools and businesses with vending machines that contain nutritious snacks. The administration should look into this company and determine whether or not this would be a benefit for the students at DSU. If Dixie had healthy resources like H.U.M.A.N. Healthy Vending on our campus, it would be resourceful.
Some people may argue that the cafeteria or other campus eateries have those nutritious foods already available for students. Providing healthy foods in vending machines all around campus can make grabbing a healthy snack easier than going to the cafeteria or other eateries.
“Having healthier, easy snack options around campus would make staying healthy more doable,” said Ashley Leonard, a freshman psychology major from Las Vegas. “Sometimes I am tempted to get a candy bar out of the vending machine, but if there were healthy options available, I would much rather have that.”
Eliminating junk food and sugary treats from campus would not be a downfall because it would be replacing something bad with something better.
