SE 5

Eating Healthy on Campus Is Possible?

Living on a college campus can have a strong effect on what you eat every day. With classes and activities, the last thing on most people’s minds is eating healthy. Looking over the food journals of members of the class, I noticed that snacks were one of the main ways that people ate, especially over the weekend. It’s easy to grab a bag of chips in between classes or snack on a bagel before leaving for the day. Snacking usually tends to lead people to eat less healthy than they should with so many different kinds of fattening snacks available around campus. However, based on my observations there are a lot of people that are eating fairly healthy snacks. One of the main forms of this that I saw was yogurt.

                Now most people could guess that yogurt is a healthy snack—it’s dairy and usually has fruit in it. Still most people do not realize how healthy it can be for you. Yogurt is full of various nutrients including protein, niacin, thiamin, vitamin B12, magnesium and of course calcium. These various nutrients are very important to people of any age. An article by the International Journal of Obesity discusses the health benefits of a diet that has yogurt in it. One of the ideas that it discusses is how studies have found that a calcium-rich diet promotes healthier eating all around. Dairy provides both children and adults with many nutrients that are very beneficial and is proven to combat obesity by lowering a person’s total body fat (Zemel). Yogurt can also be found to have a greater variety of options to the average consumer. Walking down the grocery store aisle, you will probably see dozens of different yogurt options from plain vanilla yogurt to key lime pie yogurt. These different flavors make eating yogurt easier to eat on a daily basis. You can choose from a variety of flavors every day, giving you something different to try every day.

                As you can see yogurt is a great way to get calcium and other nutrients, but the same could be said about drinking a glass of milk with every meal. However, yogurt does have even more benefits that outweigh the benefits of drinking milk. In an article by the International Journal of Dairy Technology, the author discusses how yogurt can be eaten for probiotics and by people who are lactose-intolerant. Yogurt is one of the leading ways that probiotics are available to consumers. Probiotics are living microorganisms that, when introduced to the body, have numerous health effects. Most of the proposed benefits of probiotics are centered on the digestive system; however, some have been linked to helping with some types of cancer.  Another benefit of yogurt is that people who are lactose intolerant are able to eat it without reacting to the lactose. This is because during the fermentation process the lactose is turned into glucose. Therefore yogurt is a great way for people who are lactose-intolerant to get the numerous nutrients that are normally only available in milk and other dairy products that contain lactose (McKinley).

                With all of the numerous health benefits that are available just from eating yogurt every day, it is impressive that it is so easy for people to obtain it on campus. Sometimes the easier choice can be the healthier one. Most people will warn you about gaining the “Freshman 15” and getting into really bad eating habits. However, we seem to be choosing right and getting our full recommended amount of dairy products with yogurt, a tasty nutritious snack for any college student.

Works Cited

McKinley, Michelle C. “The nutrition and health benefits of yoghurt.” International Journal of Dairy Technology. Volume 58, Issue 1, 14 Jan 2005: Society of Dairy Technology. <http://jc3th3db7e.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=The+nutrition+and+bealth+benefits+of+yoghurt&rft.jtitle=International+Journal+of+Dairy+Technology&rft.au=MICHELLE+C+MCKINLEY&rft.date=2005-02-28&rft.issn=1364-727X&rft.volume=58&rft.issue=1&rft.spage=1&rft.externalDBID=NTDT&rft.externalDocID=875786231>

Zemel, M B. “Dairy augmentation of total and central fat loss in obese subjects.” International Journal of Obesity. 29, p. 391-397 11 January 2005: Nature Publishing Group. <http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v29/n4/abs/0802880a.html>