You are what you eat

We college students have a stigmatized reputation for unhealthy living. Some would say it partly defines being a college student, the term itself being synonymous with a diet of frozen pizzas and ramen.

There’s an urban legend that one college student gave himself scurvy by living on just ramen for an entire year. (I’m guessing that’s not true.) I knew a guy who claimed to have gone one year in college without spending any money on food at all, and ended up shooting squirrels on campus with a BB gun and eating them. (He was from Texas, so that might be true.)

But this is ridiculous! Seriously, guys! There’s a nifty little romanticized image that’s sprung up around a cheap and unhealthy lifestyle, and that sucks. It’s easy to forget that roughly a third of American adults are now considered obese, giving us the highest rate of obesity in the developed world, and heart disease remains the number-one cause of death and disability in the country. That shit ain’t funny. The main preventatives of heart disease are (surprise!) eating healthy, exercising and not smoking.

For healthy eating, the problems students always cite are time and money. Not only are we broke, we’re always on the go, and healthy food allegedly costs more and takes longer to prepare. Both of those reasons are rather silly, because there’s a lot of inexpensive and time-efficient food out there.

Examples: Boiled eggs are easy to make once a week and stick in the fridge. Fruit is pretty freakin’ inexpensive, and as ready-to-eat as you get. Mass dishes like big pots of chili with a ton of veggies are easy to make and will provide you with multiple meals for a week or two. Veggies themselves are pretty damn cheap and very portable.

Granted, you can’t live on eggs and carrots, but it’s better than ramen and grilled cheese sandwiches. Be creative. Find the healthy stuff you like and experiment with it.

As for cost, gimme a break. The monetary difference of eating healthy is small compared to the amount of money the average student takes out in loans. Even if the difference was fairly large, it’s easier to pay back extra debt than it is to fix the problems caused by years of shitty health. And if your shitty health develops into something more serious, the subsequent medical bills are probably going to make your extra debt strangely insignificant.

For exercise, we’re lucky enough to have the Peter Stott Center right here on campus, which provides facilities like weight rooms and circuit training available for free. And for those wishing to use the locker rooms or aquatic center, it’s a paltry $21 per term.

Even still, sometimes we are so time-crunched, we can’t spend an hour or so at a fitness center, but it doesn’t mean we can’t get in good exercise. Calisthenics can make for a nice break when studying or writing a paper, as can going for a quick run around the block a few times, which has the added bonus of getting the endorphins going and refreshing you. And we can’t forget that sweetest of workouts, energetic sex. Devoting 15-30 minutes a day to any of these activities, far from detracting, can provide both a physical and mental boost to the rest of a stressful day.

And as for smoking, well, for those of you have tried to quit and didn’t make it, don’t ever stop trying.

A healthy lifestyle doesn’t have to be incongruous with the college experience. It’s very possible to eat a reasonably balanced diet at a low cost, and do a moderate amount of exercise daily. Not only is it easy to do, it makes you feel better, both physically and mentally. All it takes is a little bit of initiative. And fewer packages of ramen.