Today: Mar 28, 2024

Food and diet for students

Joseph Vincenzi – Reporter

Business administration management major, Gabriel Tenkorang, a senior, said he wakes up every day to a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. In three minutes, he has a balanced, healthy meal that will hold him for 5 hours, allowing him over to get a full workout at the gym without lacking energy.

Like Tenkorang, many students at Southern employ their own eating habits to stay healthy and maintain energy throughout their day. Tenkorang said oatmeal is an easy way for students to have a healthy start to the day.

“I’m not big on sugary foods,” said Tenkorang. “Oatmeal is good for having energy at the gym and burning fat. It’s also pretty quick to make.”

Tenkorang also recommends that students eat three meals a day to maintain a steady metabolism and keep in good spirits. “Try not to miss meals,” said Tenkorang. “Missing meals causes unnecessary stress.”

Others said they feel that it is quite difficult to maintain good eating habits at Southern. “It is very hard to make the healthy choice at Southern,” said Sam Martin, a freshman. “Some recommendations that I would give are to eat breakfast, to avoid the fried food station, to avoid carbs, and to check out the salad station at Connecticut Hall.”

“Another thing I do is only drink water,” he said. “Because I do not always make the healthiest decisions, I feel that drinking water is an attempt to start to balance it out.” Other students do not have specific eating habits, but also favor the idea of choosing the best option available at Connecticut Hall.

“It’s easy to eat garbage all the time,” said Resident Adviser Nick Wheeler. “The problem is that a lot of the food there is fried, which doesn’t help if someone wants to eat healthy.”

For lunch, Tenkorang eats a decent amount of carbohydrates and a good helping of vegetables. He said he prefers to eat leaner meat such as chicken over something fatty like a burger.

“I’ll eat burgers occasionally,” said Tenkorang. “I’ll have some carbs, but not too many. I generally don’t eat the pizza because it is not a nutritious food.”

Tenkorang said pizza and fries are packed with carbohydrates, which often make students feel tired and weary throughout the day because most of that energy will not get used up.

“I would recommend utilizing your swipes at the student center. They have a great smoothie station and a salad bar.”

For Tenkorang’s dinner, he will generally adhere to a lowcarb, high vegetable diet. He said it is not good to have a lot of carbohydrates late in the day because students might not use all the energy they gain by the time they go to bed.

Popular opinion may claim that the dining halls do not always yield the best food, but many students have found ways to address that obstacle.

As Wheeler said, “just because other people are eating a certain way doesn’t mean you have to.”

 

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