Most people will go to college and get a huge slap of reality one way or another. Some people will wake up and realize they are in the real world through their finances, meal choices, friends, study habits or just habits in general. The real world isn't easy, and the first thing most college students learn over and over again is that they need to start eating better. At home it can be easy to eat well when a parent is only buying healthy foods and snacks for you to eat. At college it's different; no one is telling you that you can't have ice cream every night at 3 am. The only reason a college student knows that they need to eat better is when their body tells them to; this could be by the body getting ill or just not functioning the way it usually does.
At Longwood University, a student's meal plan is different than another student's meal plan at a different university. At Longwood there is the dining hall that students can come to get all three meals a day, if they so desire. The Dining Hall -- or Dhall, as it's affectionately called -- isn't just a place to grab a single meal with friends and to socialize, it is a buffet line. Students can go and get as much food as they want, and still socialize or study with friends. A personal recommendation for Dhall is to get at least one fruit and/or vegetable with each meal. It is time to be an adult, which means blaming Dhall for your upset stomach isn't fair or mature.
With each and/or any buffet line, there is always a selection of different foods to eat during each meal, without limit of how much food each student can eat. When a student eats pizza and fries everyday and then blames Dhall for an upset stomach, it is a little unnecessary and immature in all honesty. This is college, a place where choices are made everyday, some choices are an instant reflection while others are long term.
Eating a salad with your pizza is great. No one is saying to never eat fries or fried chicken ever again, but what people need to remember is that each piece of food put into a person's body will either give the person long term energy or short term energy.
The hardest part of college won't be the social aspect or even the academic aspect, the hardest part of college is figuring out how to be an adult and take care of yourself. Eating right is one of the ways that you learn how to care of yourself, yet it isn't as simple as just waking up and deciding to eat healthy. It has to be an effort taken with every meal to add something healthy onto your plate. It doesn't mean you can't have ice cream every week, just have something to balance it out. At Dhall, there is always a fruit and salad line available; there also always a healthy choice available anywhere you eat.
