by Andy Paulo

Created on: May 02, 2008

For those of us who attended college, we may remember the challenges of maintaining a healthy diet on campus. Frankly, it was impossible. And the "freshmen fifteen" soon became something we were lucky to have while praying we wouldn't hit the "freshman forty". And in the day and age where anything with the slightest bit of taste is forcibly removes and outlawed, the fear of students leaving in September svelte and lean, only to come home for Christmas fat and mean seems to grow each day.

But even with the fear of the deadly "obesity", there's a factor in this diet debacle left unconsidered. How, exactly, does a student's eating habits affect their collegiate performance? Do they at all? What can we do to help? All these questions, and possibly one or two more, will be addressed in the following paragraphs.

Studies are released almost daily talking about how weight and diet play into every aspect of our daily and weekly lives. And most of us ignore said studies and continue the drive to Bob Evan's. But for the college student, a balanced diet relies entirely on what pizza toppings they chose. Now one might say that ordering pizza on a regular basis would adversely affect a student's GPA, but that's simply just not true.

Compare daily pizza delivery to the alternatives. Were the student to go to the cafeteria instead, they would most likely eat food that was only marginally healthier and more nutritious than the pizza they didn't order. Not a great victory. And the time it would take to walk to the cafeteria, go through the line, find a seat, eat the food, bus their tray, walk back to the dorm, have a smoke, hit on the tipsy girl sitting on the stoop, try to get her phone number, fail, and go back to his room could easily be spent studying. Time and effort spent eating right is time and effort taken from studying.

Now before you write me an angry letter, consider also the time needed to cook in his dorm. Unless he's microwaving Ramen or eating Oreo O's Cereal out of the box, he's losing precious cram-time. Scientific studies that I'm currently fabricating show conclusively that the healthier a student eats, the more likely they are to end up changing their major to Hemp and spending their time protesting the US occupation of the United States.

So the choice is easy. Trash the turnips, forget the flax, and buy a Dominos franchisefor the children.

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