Starting col­lege is an excit­ing time in many young people’s lives. It means more free­dom from par­ents, a first chance to live on your own and learn­ing to be respon­si­ble for your­self and your own choices. Part of per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity is mak­ing sure you take care of your­self and stay as healthy as you can.

When stu­dents come to col­lege it gives them more free­dom and it can affect their over­all health. With late night study ses­sions fueled by pizza and choco­late, and the lack of exer­cise, stu­dents may have a hard time main­tain­ing a healthy lifestyle. Avoiding the fresh­man 15 can seem next to impos­si­ble; how­ever, it is all about self-discipline and healthy choices.

Starting your col­lege career off on the right foot can really help main­tain a healthy lifestyle. It may be harder to make these health­ier choices with a busy sched­ule, hav­ing more free­dom than you would liv­ing at home, or even just the temp­ta­tion of all the desserts and fatty foods available.

It’s often times harder for stu­dent liv­ing in res­i­dence halls, because they don’t nec­es­sar­ily have the free­dom to cook meals using an oven or stove, whereas stu­dents liv­ing off cam­pus have more choices. “I started eat­ing a lot health­ier when I lived off cam­pus,” said sopho­more Tara Dykehouse.

“I had a lot more options at the cafeterias.”

It’s all about what you choose to eat. There are always snacks and junk foods, but there are many healthy alter­na­tives offered at the din­ing halls on campus.

Eating healthy isn’t always easy, or appe­tiz­ing, in the din­ing halls. While you can’t always have a home­made meal, some rely fully on cafe­te­ria food and snacks.  

“I was always used to hav­ing din­ner made by my mom every night,” said fresh­man Brittany Wood. “However, when I came to col­lege I found myself eat­ing more chips or candy in between classes or even as a meal.”

The col­lege diet of most col­lege stu­dents con­sists of cereal, chips, and microwav­able foods. It’s impor­tant to do the best to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet and your body will thank you for it. In addi­tion to keep­ing pounds off, you will feel bet­ter and have more energy if you eat plenty of fruits and veg­eta­bles, lean meats, and min­i­mize the sugar and fat.

Dining ser­vices work hard to pro­vide a wide vari­ety of foods and ser­vices to meet each student’s needs. It encour­ages food and bev­er­age choices that meet the rec­om­men­da­tions of the American Heart Association and American Institute of Cancer Research. These include choos­ing an over­all bal­anced diet from all major food groups, one that is rich in fruits, veg­eta­bles and grains. Also, select foods that are low in fat and salt, includ­ing fat-free and low-fat dairy prod­ucts, legumes, poul­try, lean meats, and at least two serv­ings of fish per week.

On the Ferris web­site in the din­ing sec­tion you can see the nutri­tion infor­ma­tion of every­thing on the menu served each day. It is a good idea to be able to know what is in the foods you are putting into your mouth.

“Every day before I go to the Rock I look up what they are serv­ing and fig­ure out how many calo­ries and fats are in the foods,” said fresh­man Bethany Sonefeld. “This is how I choose what I am going to eat that night. I like know­ing the nutri­tion of each meal I eat.”

There are also lists of healthy tips and hints that you can fol­low on the web­site. The foods served shouldn’t be the prob­lem, but it is the deci­sion of what types of foods you are eat­ing that matter. Research sup­ports the fact that we can live bet­ter by exer­cis­ing, main­tain­ing a healthy weight, eat­ing a vari­ety of foods, and reduc­ing our con­sump­tion of fried and fat foods, as well as salt.

A few ques­tions to ask your­self to see if you are mak­ing healthy deci­sions are: “Do you fre­quently choose fried foods?” “Does your plate always have but­ter on it?” “Do you usu­ally drink pop or punch instead of milk, water, or juice?” A few things to keep in mind are not always going up for sec­onds, switch­ing that glass of pop for a glass of water, lim­it­ing the amounts of dress­ing or sauce on a salad or sand­wich, or not hav­ing a cookie or piece of pie for dessert. Eating unnec­es­sary calo­ries can be a problem.

Staying healthy in col­lege takes noth­ing more than self– dis­ci­pline. College life can be tough, stress­ful and over­whelm­ing at times. It is very impor­tant that col­lege stu­dents lead a well-balanced life at col­lege, which includes col­lege health. Your health is one of the most impor­tant things to think about, so it’s very cru­cial to always keep in mind what’s best for you in the long run. Staying healthy at col­lege is impor­tant because it helps stu­dents feel bet­ter and more confident.