It’s one of the most notorious changes for college students. According to HealingWell.com,… It’s one of the most notorious changes for college students. According to HealingWell.com, about 60 percent of them suffer from it every year, and out of those 60 percent, 20 percent do so severely.

Everyone knows it’s coming, but no one can face the reality that it’s actually happening to them. No, I’m not talking about being depressed or even failing classes; I’m talking about getting fat, better known as “putting on the Freshman 15.”

The Freshman 15 is caused by bad eating habits and lack of exercise. Here at Pitt, this is most directly a consequence of two problems, the first being the lack of healthy, wholesome, reasonably priced foods and the second being students’ attitudes toward maintaining healthy lifestyles.

Students are consuming high amounts of unhealthy foods and beverages and are gaining weight as a consequence. Students are also not exercising enough, as exercise usually conflicts with class, homework or a social event.

Stress and laziness appear to be prime causes in this epidemic. According to Reader’s Digest, individuals who feel stressed are more prone to eating unhealthy foods. Students are also less inclined to go searching for healthy foods if the foods are not readily available and reasonably priced.

Social lives also play a significant role in the unhealthy habits of college students. Many students go out to parties on weekends and drink a lot of beer. Beer is high in carbohydrates and calories – about 150 of them per drink.

Students also tend to eat meals with friends, which also contributes to the consumption of unnecessary calories because people are prone to eating whatever is in front of them. Normally, when someone is finished eating, he or she gets up and leaves. But because students often find themselves waiting for their friends to finish eating, they end up needlessly eating any leftover food.

Students, however, are not entirely to blame for the typical weight gain recorded at college. Foods offered by universities are, in many cases, poor in quality. Pitt is certainly no exception.

The Marketplace, Eddie’s and Schenley Cafe are hardly places students can find nourishing entrees. Meal block specials at Schenley Cafe include hamburgers, pizza and hoagies – foods that are unhealthy and fattening. While Eddie’s and The Marketplace provide salad bar options for students, most of their main courses sadly fall well short of anything that could remotely be considered nutritious.

And for the small amount of healthy foods that these cafeterias do offer, the price is high. Schenley Cafe charges almost $5 for a small chicken salad. A student wouldn’t even be able to get a decent size drink with that for a block, let alone satisfy a hunger craving.

The Smart Market located at the bottom of Towers also charges extremely high amounts of money for food. Last Sunday, I went block shopping and bought an 11-ounce box of Apple Jacks – for more than $5!

The University is essentially exploiting students’ inability to buy food elsewhere using meal blocks and dining dollars, and is in turn charging ridiculously high prices for food. It fails to understand that good quality food is essential for students to perform optimally during the day.

What’s even worse is that if a student lives at a residence hall other than Forbes-Craig and Bouquet Gardens, he or she must have a meal plan. Why should a student be forced to have a meal plan just because he or she lives in a residence hall?

The University needs to make a concerted effort to improve food on campus. Doing so will not only improve the well-being of students, but will strengthen the reputation of the University.

Similarly, once quality food is available, students need to take advantage of it and not go out to restaurants like McDonald’s and Wendy’s every night because their deep-fried food is cheap and tasty.

Sam wants to disband Sodexho and form his own healthy catering company called Samdexho. E-mail him at [email protected] if you believe he should be the one providing food for Pitt students.