Trying to eat healthy is a timeless struggle for all of us, but especially for college students. We’re expected to do hours of nightly homework, not fail out, be all social and involved in clubs, remember to call our moms, and have time to eat wholesome, nutritious meals?
We’re not superhumans, people.
Although our reasons for putting on the freshman 15 can range from simply not having time to work out to ODing on late-night greasy Castle food our first year, I’ve observed a couple factors that keep even the best of us from eating clean.
1. The restaurants in Charlottesville are just too good.
There are more restaurants per capita in Charlottesville than there are in New York City, which is a fact unbelievable in itself before even considering how flat-out amazing all the food is. There is something for literally every taste—Citizen Burger for the beef lovers, Basil for Mediterranean palates, and Bizou for you fancy brunchers. We now even have two (not just one, but two) nighttime cookie delivery stores. Sure, you could order healthy things when dining out, but are you really going to pass up the Virginia’s famous mac and cheese or a Cookout milkshake? Definitely not.
2. Healthy foods kill wallets.
College kids are notorious for constantly being beyond broke, and I’m sure almost everyone would prefer a Roots bowl over a Bodo’s bagel for dinner, but not when you can get three or four bagels for the price of one trip to Roots. Salads at restaurants almost always cost significantly more than other menu options, and the prices of fruits and vegetables at grocery stores physically hurt. Why buy a tiny container of blueberries for $5 when you can get two jumbo bags of chips AND salsa?
3. Late night munchies, every single night.
In high school, I wasn’t staying up into the early hours of the morning hunched over a table in Clem doing all the homework I put off while simultaneously inhaling an entire pizza and four cups of coffee. If I'm up late studying, my priority is not going to be ensuring that I have a bowl of kale to snack on. I also wasn't coming back from Rugby Road in the middle of the night on weekends and stopping myself from getting a Gus burger from the White Spot at 2 am. I can’t help that my body needs to eat every four or five hours, nor can I help being awake all night. It’s really not our faults, things just happen.
4. No time (or effort) to cook real food.
I’ve yet to meet a student here that has enough hours in the day to do all the 300 pages of reading every professor loves to assign, attend each of their extracurricular activities, and put together a homemade dinner. It’s a thousand times easier and faster to slap together a peanut butter and jelly or eat a bowl of Reese’s Puffs than it is to grill chicken and peel potatoes for a casserole. Also, most college kids just don’t have the motivation. I’d rather eat a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese and go to sleep instead of grocery shop for real ingredients and wash a mountain of dishes.
5. Everyone always wants to meet for food.
Whenever you run into an old friend or meet someone cool in your discussion, it seems like the automatic outlet to getting to know someone better is going somewhere to eat together. No one says, “Hey, want to meet in the library and talk over a cup of water?” Instead, it’s always, “Let’s get Arch’s tonight!” or “Want to grab Starbucks this weekend?” Even if you’ve already eaten or severely overspent on your weekly budget, you’re pretty much obligated to go eat socially on a regular basis.
College is basically a synonym for horrible diets and unhealthy eating habits. Long gone are the days of your mom’s home-cooked dinners and the ready availability of nutritious things in your fridge. We don't seek out bad food; bad food comes to us, and we just can't be judged for simply happening to be in an environment with such wonderfully unhealthy foods all around. It's a miracle we're able to feed ourselves at all, really.
