Fast food is not only fast, but extremely convenient for college students. The dining commons aren’t open late after a fun full-filled night of partying, so, where to turn? McDonalds! That is usually the answer many students will turn to. Obviously, fast food is not the healthiest food choice, but sometimes displays itself as the only option to quench student’s hunger resulting in college weight issues.
When the movie Super Size Me hit box offices it gave many students a heads up on the caloric number of what they are willingly putting in their bodies. After one month of eating McDonalds (fast food), more and more people became aware of the visual affects fast food has on your body. Although, many overachieving, busy students do not have any other option because they are always on the run.
"I have had a number of students express concern about the lack of availability of healthy snacks and that there seems [to be] too much availability of unhealthy choices," said eating disorder specialist, Valerie Staples.
Unlike the Westfield State College campus, many colleges and universities have fast food chains as there main options for eating, whereas we have Subway which is considered health(ier) on our flex meal plan. 98% of students who live on campus have a flex meal plan, and sometimes all the mouth watering options are too hard to resist.
“Recent statistics show that Subway averaged between 800 and 900 on-campus transactions a day, Burger King, 700 transactions and Sbarrro, roughly 600 transactions. In addition, approximately 50 percent of those stores' revenue comes from flex point usage.”
The worst part is, students are aware of the unhealthy values of these chains, but eat it knowingly. Athletes are more apt to make healthier eating choices, but as for the rest of us, if it is set right in front of us, we’ll eat anything. Therefore, I believe that college campuses should limit their fast food options and replace them with co-ops, whole food stores or something/ANYTHING more nutritional.
(http://media.www.ndsmcobserver.com/media/storage/paper660/news/2004/09/09/News/FastFood.Lifestyle.Weighing.On.Campus-713932-page2.shtml)
When the movie Super Size Me hit box offices it gave many students a heads up on the caloric number of what they are willingly putting in their bodies. After one month of eating McDonalds (fast food), more and more people became aware of the visual affects fast food has on your body. Although, many overachieving, busy students do not have any other option because they are always on the run.
"I have had a number of students express concern about the lack of availability of healthy snacks and that there seems [to be] too much availability of unhealthy choices," said eating disorder specialist, Valerie Staples.
Unlike the Westfield State College campus, many colleges and universities have fast food chains as there main options for eating, whereas we have Subway which is considered health(ier) on our flex meal plan. 98% of students who live on campus have a flex meal plan, and sometimes all the mouth watering options are too hard to resist.
“Recent statistics show that Subway averaged between 800 and 900 on-campus transactions a day, Burger King, 700 transactions and Sbarrro, roughly 600 transactions. In addition, approximately 50 percent of those stores' revenue comes from flex point usage.”
The worst part is, students are aware of the unhealthy values of these chains, but eat it knowingly. Athletes are more apt to make healthier eating choices, but as for the rest of us, if it is set right in front of us, we’ll eat anything. Therefore, I believe that college campuses should limit their fast food options and replace them with co-ops, whole food stores or something/ANYTHING more nutritional.
(http://media.www.ndsmcobserver.com/media/storage/paper660/news/2004/09/09/News/FastFood.Lifestyle.Weighing.On.Campus-713932-page2.shtml)
2 comments:
I don't live on campus but I know what you mean. The MacDonald's where I live has a drive thru that is opened 24 hours a day. The line gets longer as it gets later. If you drive past MacDonals's at midnight or later there is always a line at the drive through. Same with Taco Bell. I think one of the biggest conveniences of these places is that they are opened all night. And college kids are up all night.
This is soooo true people now a days are looking for the quick fix and a lot of the time that is fast food. It is a simple answer hunger and it is cheap. More and more people are going to these fast food joints and as you can see our country is hurting because of it.
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