Part 3: Feature on Student Nutrition

Today, the blog offers the final installment of our 3-part series on student eating habits (Click here for Part 1 and Part 2). This portion of our story looks at the consequences of poor food choices, and what the future holds for those who don't change their ways.

-------

Jane Jakubczak of the Center for Health and Wellbeing sees the consequences of these poor food choices firsthand. From both research and her work experience, students with poor eating habits are often irritable, sluggish and struggling with gastrointestinal problems.

“Constipation is a big problem on this campus,” Jakubczak says.

Students usually come to see her, Jakubczak says, when their weight begins to affect their life, leaving them fatigued or—in the case of athletes—having performance issues on the field. She notes that her busiest part of the year comes in January through March—between new year’s resolutions and spring break trips—when students are looking for easy ways to take the weight off.

“Students often times want the quick fix,” Jakubczak says. “When a student comes in two weeks before spring break and wants to lose 10 pounds, that’s unrealistic.”

According to the National College Health Assessment, more than one-third (34 percent) of university students across the country are overweight, both in their own view and as a result of their Body Mass Index (BMI). What’s more, almost half of all students (49 percent) say that they're trying to lose weight.

Putting on pounds in the short term may be what prompts students to come see her, but Jakubczak laments about the difficulty in helping students see past their college years and into the future, when the poor nutrition and eating habits of today will come back to haunt them.

“What you’re doing nutritionally now, you don’t see for 20 to 30 years from now, and then it’s too late,” Jakubczak says, adding later that “future health risks are not a very good motivator for this population.”

Brenowitz-Katz cites research as well that eating choices today can have a lasting impact, particularly because people tend to learn certain habits and stick with them through time. She also sees a plethora of health risks involved with college eating, with plenty of evidence to suggest that low intake of fruits and vegetables raises the risk of cancer and that high fat diets raise the risk of heart disease.

Most students, though, seem unconcerned with the long-term consequences of poor eating. Some talk of getting healthier when they have more time and more money. Others say that leaving school will be when they decide to make a move toward healthier eating habits.

Sam Furnish is one of those, and after finishing up his Chick-Fil-A sandwich, he leans in toward the table and hopes that the future will have him eating better.

“I definitely tell myself I will [eat healthier],” Furnish says. “I don’t know if I will, but I tell myself I will.”