Reflection on Nutrition (Ben Gray’s Lecture)
In one of our classes, Ben Gray, a
Nutrition Education Coordinator from the UGA Health Center, gave a lecture
about the importance of Nutrition in College Students. We found this lecture
very interesting because we have all seen first hand how hard it is to have a
balanced lifestyle especially when it comes to eating. We found all of Ben’s
tips extremely helpful in providing us a way to eat better. Ben discussed
Obesity trends throughout America, foods to increase and decrease, calorie
intake, and steps on how to make cooking more exciting.
In Ben’s lecture, he discussed the
Obesity trends throughout America. We were shocked to see the difference from
1990 to 2010 and that over 30% of the South is obese. This shocked is
especially since most of us were born and raised right here in the South. He
also talked about three simple ways to get in better shape, which were
sleeping, planning, and exercising. As college students, we know just how hard
it is to balance all those and the amount of schoolwork we have. We also found
it helpful when Ben discussed the foods to increase and decrease. Though we
felt like we always knew what was healthy vs. unhealthy, Ben put it into
perspective when he when further detail about certain foods. The foods he told
us to decrease were solid fats and added sugars, salt, and packaged foods. Seeing
the examples such as soda, pop tarts, and ramen noodles, made us realize how
much they were included in our everyday diet. However, he gave us foods to
increase to make our diets healthier. While we realize we eat these types of
food and recognize that they are the healthier option, Ben showed us how much
we really needed them. He told us to eat more Vegetables, Fruits, and Whole
Grains. One of the most helpful graphs he showed us was the MyPlate diagram. We
never knew the correct portions of each type of food we were suppose to be
eating and found it much more helpful than the food pyramid we had grown up
with. He also discussed Calorie Intake which showed how Activity Levels and age
coordinates to how many calories you should be taking in each day. Our favorite
part of Ben Gray’s lecture was how to make your favorite things healthier. He
gave us tips like preparing them yourselves, making modifications to your recipes,
bake-steam-grill, but most importantly to control your portions. As college
students, the dining halls make it easy to forget about these important healthy
choices.
This lecture was very interesting
because even though we have grown up knowing what is healthy vs. unhealthy, it
is easy to make bad choices in college dining halls. College students live an
extremely hectic lifestyle, trying to balance school and other activities, and
tend to forget about taking care of themselves. We are victims of knowing just
how easy it is to microwave something or run through a fast food restaurant,
instead of taking the time to prepare a healthy meal. The dining halls are the
perfect place to fall into bad habits, such as loading up your whole plate with
the endless buffet. Time seems to be the biggest constraint on College
student’s healthy lifestyle.
After
hearing Ben’s lecture, we think Nutrition is a huge public health concern that
everyone should be aware of, especially in college. Ben said how your eating
habits in college are the ones that will follow you forever and that you should
start making healthy choices now. Eating healthy is not only beneficial to your
physical appearance but to your future as well, in regards to your lifestyle.
Along with physical exercise, eating healthy can improve your mental well being
and your overall health.
Questions:
1.
Could our dining halls at UGA improve their
healthy options? We believe there is not enough range on how to eat healthy at
the dining halls and just focus on the “tastier” options such as pizza and the
pasta bar.
2.
How could more students find out about how to
eat healthier at UGA? We feel that most people don’t know about the cooking
classes and other options that we learned about in Health Class.
Ann Trice
Paula Rotondo
Rhys Brennan
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