By: Jacob Stoller
University students have plenty of things going on during the course of their studies and sometimes that means sacrificing having a balanced diet.
According to students, time seems to be the most common reason why they aren’t able to maintain a balanced diet.
“I don’t have time to either do meal prep or go grocery shopping, or cook for myself,” said fourth year Journalism student, Premila D’sa.
D’sa says that sometimes, she’ll buy a family size box of Lucky Charms cereal and two litres of milk as her groceries for the week.
“If I do a lucky charms week—this is gross—but I’ll vomit out blue. It’ll just be blue or green.”
“I feel really crabby. Low energy, for sure,” said D’sa.
The reason for making poor health choices comes down to two factors.
“Time and money,” said D’sa.
With preparing home-cooked meals or eating healthier is more expensive than fast-food, students often times resort to the quick and unhealthy option.
“If you have to take an hour out of your day to make a meal, versus running out and getting something in ten minutes at a fast-food joint—you waste precious time and money,” third-year English and History student, Nathan Gregory, said.
In a study led by Sameer Despande of the University of Lethbirdge, it was determined that the most important factors in predicting food choices is taste, cost and convenience. For students commuting, or in a rush to get to class, those three factors can out-weigh a healthy alternative.
“When I come downtown, I can eat what I want. You have healthy options around here, but it’s cheaper to not eat healthy, though,” said third-year business management student Wayne Cente.
While students save time and money in eating less heathy options, the effects of a poor diet can heavily effect a university students studies, says one nutritionist.
“Cognitively, you cannot give presentations as well as you could [if you were well fed]. You can not absorb information as well. You’re going to be a little cranky,” said Kyle Byron, a Toronto-based nutritionist. “Then, you’re going to start to have cravings, that night. Those cravings will sort of catch-up to you.”
Byron says the key to having a balanced diet is to start your day off with a good meal. And even if some students don’t have much time, there’s no excuse for going to school with an empty stomach.
“If you skip breakfast, you better leave the house with a smoothie or a quest bar. Maybe you leave with hard boiled eggs and a piece of fruit,” said Byron.
Byron says another problem with students diets is their large consumption of alcohol and marijuana. The biggest issue, according to Byron, isn’t necessarily the calories that are directly in alcohol, but the food thats typically craved after consuming alcohol or marijuana.
“Just like you may make out with a person that you normally wouldn’t if you were sober—you may [eat] poutine when you’re drunk, when you might have not if you were sober,” said Byron.
Byron says the key to having a balanced diet is having healthy snacks at your disposal.
“Mini cans of tuna, nuts, protein powder, beef jerky, greek yogurt—those are some of the snacks you can carry around.”
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