If you've lived on campus at almost any school in the United States, you probably already know where this article is headed. School to school, the food remains relatively the same. And students have to live off of it.
I'll start off easy, it's downright unhealthy. The freshman fifteen is almost inevitable, as there are unhealthy choices around every corner. Pizza, sugary cereal, fried meats, and every flavor of pop (or soda) you could ever imagine. The "healthy" choices are still usually loaded with sodium, the vegetables' nutrients have leached out from over cooking, and the salad bar is full of low nutrient vegetables and high fat dressings. It's claimed that these are the foods that students want, but in reality, they're the cheapest foods to pump out in bulk.
The second problem is the quality. No one should have to take Pepto-Bismol or Tums after every meal to simply feel okay, but that's common among college freshman forced to eat in the cafeterias. It's hard to be productive with an upset stomach, and while they happen every once and awhile to everyone, college cafeterias are breeding grounds for upset stomachs. I'm not sure what exactly about the food that's causing the problem, but it's an issue that needs to be resolved.
Third? Variety. While some cafeterias have great variety, most suffer from the same, boring menu every day. If you're getting tired of sodium and sugar piled high on your plate in the form of fried chicken and ice cream, that's a bummer because that's all you're going to be eating until the next time your parents let you come home.
Fourth: accommodations. Everything seems to be covered in large amounts of cheese, making lactose-intolerants suffer. Most options include meat, ruling vegetarians and vegans out. Bread is everywhere, ruling all of the gluten frees into a very limited menu. While it can be hard to accommodate everyone, having tofu options and perhaps adding cheese by request, many would be opened up to a wider variety of foods.
And last, but not least, the hours. Granted, many cafeterias are open from early in the morning until late at night, the limited menu options between traditional hours for meals are extremely limiting. To better explain, I'll use a personal example. Lunch ended at 2:00 p.m., and I got out of class at 2:00. I was then limited to cheese pizza, pepperoni pizza, sub sandwiches, hand dipped ice cream, soft serve ice cream, cereal, burgers, fried chicken patty sandwiches, or a limp salad bar. I had little to no healthy options, and no way around missing lunch unless I skipped class. It was brutal, but dinner didn't start until 5:00 and I'm not one for skipping meals.
Basically, what I'm saying is that things need to change. College students are living off of this food and it constantly leaves us feeling lethargic, not full, fat, and on the toilet. Healthy food costs more, but colleges shouldn't be profiting off of the need for students living in dorms to eat. Healthy options, and more accommodating options need to be more widely available, and pizza and ice cream should not be served all day every day. The freshman fifteen should not be inevitable, and I shouldn't have to spend $20 a month on antacids.
