Being back at my school the past couple of weeks and eating campus food has reminded me why there is a such thing as the “Freshman Fifteen.” Although many campuses, including my own, try hard to provide better alternatives, it is hard to keep a healthy diet while at school. My campus dining plan of choice this year is seven dining hall swipes a week and $900 dining dollars. Besides when freshmen start going out at night, drinking, eating on the way home, etc. the dining options can get boring when you’re living there for the whole year. Here’s some possibilities as to why students gain weight while dorming at school:

1. Half of the options dining options are closed during dinner time.

When I’m not using one of my seven swipes to the dining hall I usually go to the building which has a wide variety of options on my campus. There are places such as Starbucks, sandwiches, sushi, and salads and soups. During the day having so many options is great but for some reason these places are not open during dinner time and on weekends. Some students live on campus through the weekend for weeks, and in some cases, months on end. So why should half of campus dining be closed in a place where thousands of students live?

2. The options that are open are not the best options.

During dinner hours during weekdays and all day and night on weekends the only spots open are the Italian place which serves a variety of foods one can order at a pizzeria such as pizza, calzones, wings, pasta, etc. and the alternative which has snacks and drinks that one may find in a convenience store, and has a station to order American food such as hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, chicken fingers, etc. These options are not the healthiest as we cannot get a portion of veggies and most of it is fried. Don’t get me wrong, a little fried food is definitely good for the soul, but there should be healthy alternatives during dinner time outside of the dining hall. Not to mention since they closed everything else, the lines for these two options are usually so long that by the time I walk out of the place it is about 45 minutes later.

3. Since the lines are so long and options are limited during dinner time, I found myself only eating one big meal a day for the past couple of days

The thought of going to wait for almost an hour on a huge line made me cringe so I decided to skip it altogether. I decided to eat a late lunch and snacked a whole lot later on in the night. When I only eat one meal a day, I get so hungry that I just eat a lot of junk very quickly instead of finding food that’s good for me. Even if I go to the dining hall where there’s a nice salad bar and other options, on the way out the cookies and ice cream look so good, I can’t help but to grab one.