Freshman 15-Guide to Healthy Dining Hall Eating Part #1

 

“From international cuisine to vegetarian entrées to gourmet pizzas, dining at Michigan is all about options. With many dining halls, residential cafés and meal plans to choose from, there’s always a tasty way to satisfy your craving for something healthy, hearty, spicy, crunchy, juicy, grilled or made to order.”

-Excerpt from the University of Michigan Housing Website

 

Hey everyone, welcome back to my blog! This week and the week of August 11^th we are going to talk about how to eat healthy in the dining hall. Have you heard of the term Freshman 15? Freshman 15 is a popular and unique term used in the United States. It means that on average a new college student would gain 15 pounds in the first year due to unhealthy and uncontrolled eating habits. 15 pounds in a year? That may sound unbelievable and exaggerated to you! According to a recent study, it found that about 10% of college freshman did gain 15 pounds or more and the average person gained 1.5 pounds. So, are you ready to combat the Freshman 15? Before we go into a deep discussion about how to eat smart and build your own food pyramid, let’s first learn about the dining hall system here at the University of Michigan.

The University of Michigan has 8 dining halls located on central and north campus. Each dining hall has its own weekly menu and hours. All the meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, weekend brunch, and special holiday meals) come with buffet style, also known as All You Can Eat. Doesn’t this sound wonderful? J To eat in the dining hall, you can use either a meal plan or blue bucks & dining dollars. Meal plan is a good option for students living on campus and also students who live off-campus but want to eat in the dining hall most of the time. Meal plan is like a dining contract. You can choose how many meals you want to have in the dining hall per semester. The number of meals may range from 125 to Unlimited for resident hall residents and from 50 to Unlimited for Northwood residents and off-campus residents. If you are not sure which plan to choose, there is a Meal Plan Calculator that would help you figure out the best option for you. Once you sign up for the dining contract, it will be automatically loaded to your Mcard. Swipe your Mcard at the entrance and now you are ready to explore and treat yourself at any of the 8 dining halls! Another perk is that each meal plan comes with a certain amount of dining dollars, blue bucks, and guest meals. Dining dollars can be used in the dining halls, café, and snack bars in the residence halls. Blue bucks are the UM’s on-campus currency and they are accepted at a variety of on-campus locations including vending machines. Guest meals are useful when your family and friends are here and you can use guest meals to treat them. If you are not a fan of the meal plan but still want to try the dining hall meal from time to time, why not just buy some blue bucks? They are available online for your purchase and are credited to your Mcard immediately after the transaction is complete.

As I introduced before, each dining hall specializes in different type of foods to attract student dinners. You have so many choices: American food, European food, Asian food, Mexican food, Vegan food, Vegetarian food, Halal food, Gluten-free food, and more! Now, you may understand why students gain weights in the first year. Then, you may begin to worry: what on earth should I eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner every day, let alone eat healthy and smart? To make student’s life easier, the University Housing has come up with a great online tool MyNutrition to help you 1) select well-balanced meal, 2) see how your food choices measure up nutritionally, and 3) screen foods that contain allergens. Give it a try!

Although MyNutrition is a useful tool to record what nutrition you get from each meal, it is the food choice that makes the difference. In the next blog, we will talk about how to make the right choice by building your individual daily food pyramid. Stay tuned!

 

Written by Yihan Sun, pharmacy professional student (Pharm.D) at UM