When I see someone walking toward the cash register at the Wright dining hall with two pieces of pizza, a breadstick and a large cup of Coke on their tray, I’ll happily allow a feeling of nutritional superiority to wash over me as I pay for my salad. Or my whole-wheat, veggie-loaded sandwich. Or my bowl of fresh fruit.
That feeling quickly fades, though, as I nervously watch as the price adds up on the register. It’s a guessing game, really. Half of the items in the cafeteria don’t have a price on them, so I usually have only a vague idea of how much I’m actually spending before I swipe my card.
I’d say that I get an adrenaline rush from the thrill of budgeting out my meals if, you know, I wasn’t actually allocating my meal points and instead budgeting out something slightly more trivial.
Like M&M’s, or the amount of times I’ll allow myself to complain about Donald Trump each week in my column — I’ve already reached my ceiling for the week. Or something in between those two things.
In all seriousness, though, there’s a problem with our food system here at IU. It’s a complex one, and I briefly touched on it earlier: the expense of eating healthy in our dining halls.
I understand that fresh foods like greens and fruits inherently cost more than processed, packaged food like PopTarts or chips, but it should not be reflected to the extent that it is in food pricing here. And I shouldn’t have to feel guilty for buying food that’s good for me.
In my self-defense class a few weeks ago, my instructor told the class something that has sat in the back of my mind since then: “The habits you’re forming right now in college are the ones you’re going to stick with for the rest of your life.”
I wholeheartedly believe that. I think that most people can agree with it, actually.
If you live a healthy lifestyle in college, chances are you’ll continue that after graduation. Same goes for the opposite. If you spend your meal points on pizza and breadsticks every day, there’ll be a good chance you continue that habit after college.
By no means do I think that IU should purge anything remotely unhealthy from the dining halls.
It’s to IU’s benefit, though, to promote healthy eating. It will result in a happier, more alert and more fit student body.
Healthy eating is all about making the right choices, though, and I don’t think that IU is helping students make the right choice. Or even nudging them in that general direction.
If a student has to choose between eating a bowl of yogurt topped with blueberries and granola or eating a donut for breakfast, the student is likely going to go with the cheaper option: the donut.
The overarching problem here is that food prices in the dining halls are not incentivizing healthy eating. Instead, they’re incentivizing foods with processed grains and loads of preservatives in them. And that’s something that needs to change.
acgroove@indiana.edu
