The freshman 15 is not a joke. This is not a drill. Coming to college everyone hears about it and everyone thinks they can avoid it. I am here to say it is virtually impossible with the dining options Auburn has on campus. This is not just an Auburn problem either I have noticed it on the other college campuses I have visited as well.
Freshman year I lived on campus and had to use my Tigercard money to eat. My mom always raised me to be very health conscious of what I am putting into my body. However, it was so hard to eat healthily and live on campus when I had a pizza place and a store packed with candy and chips for those late college nights.
Needless to say, the freshman 15 was very much a thing for me. It wasn't until sophomore year when I made it a huge point to go out of my way to eat wellness every day — blowing through my Tigercard money before even half of the semester was up. Come junior year I now live off campus and can eat and cook as healthy as I want to and it has made the absolute world of difference in my energy and how I feel day-to-day.
Moving from Colorado to Auburn, it was interesting for me to see the cuisine change. I went from salad restaurants and smoothie bars to deep-fried just about everything. This is not to say the food does not taste like a thousand angels singing from heaven, because it does. There is nothing quite like taking a rewarding bite of that Chick-fil-A sandwich after standing in the mile-long line in the Student Center.
However, it may taste amazing but a lot of the food on campus is terrible for you.
The saying goes that everything is OK in moderation but how can you eat unhealthy food in moderation when its the majority of whats available on campus.
As a college student, we are constantly on-the-go. We run from class to class and meeting to meeting, trying to eat on-the-go as well. You have to set out a separate adventure all its own to eat somewhere healthy on campus like the Wellness Kitchen. It's hard to make the time to do that with everything else students have on their busy schedules.
When we're in a time crunch and we need a quick affordable snack we are more prone to get a fast food meal that is under $10 compared to an overpriced container of fruit. We're in college, people are on budgets, and the healthy food on campus is overpriced.
Auburn needs healthier and more affordable dining options on campus to help promote a healthier lifestyle for their students. It is possible to make healthy food that is affordable and tastes good. It baffles me why this would not be more of a priority to make sure their students are mentally and physically well so they can be successful at this beautiful university.
Healthy food is so important to living a healthy lifestyle. Don't get me wrong I am all for a good batch of fries every now and then but I don't think it is too much to ask that student have the options available them to eat otherwise.
So please, Auburn, help your students out. You could save a lot of freshman from gaining the 15.
