University Health: 5 Foods To Avoid

Everyone knows about the dreaded Freshman 15 but if you don’t pay attention to what you eat you’ll soon be worrying about the Graduating 30. Besides finding your next cum dumpster monitoring your diet should be the most important thing you do in university.

Your diet will dictate your mood, your overall health, your ability to focus and study, your ability to retain information, and even your natural scent.

Cut down on these five foods and not only will you cut down on those love handles your bf/gf keeps telling you “are cute” – there’re just being nice and btw no one ever wants to fuck cute, they settle for cute when they can’t get sexy – but you’ll  feel better, healthier, more energized, and more confident about yourself.

Let’s skip the obvious choices, like fast food and alcohol, since we’ll never be able to give those up and concentrate on things we might actually be able to live without.

"I'll take another diet coke, please."

1. Potatoes: In the best of circumstances - when they’re eaten raw or unfried - potatoes are loaded with carbs and proteins that help people gain weight in a healthy way. However, French fries and potato chips – two of the most popular potato products among college students – are some of the worst foods you can consume. The high concentration of saturated and trans fats in these processed potato products contribute to weight gain (saturated fats help store more fat in the body), heart disease, cancers (trans fats can cause damage to your cells and Acrylamide is believed to be a direct cause of cancer). Next time skip the combo and just get the hamburger.

"OMG, i can't wait to get off this diet!"

2. Sugar: Between DQ’s Blizzards, KFC’s Apple Pies, and the litres of coffee we consume on a daily basis, sugar abuse is an inevitable part of a student’s life. Throw in soft drinks and artificial sweeteners (which are just as bad, if not worse) and you have an epidemic on your hands. In addition to helping you gain unwanted weight, sugar suppresses the immune system (makes you get sick easier) and can contribute to anxiety, hyperactivity, depression, concentration difficulties, and crankiness.

Just imagine that he's holding a Red Bull instead of a P&B sandwhich

3. Energy Drinks: They help you get through an all-nighter. They help you wake up for 8:30am classes. They help you rage. Vodka Red Bull, anyone? But they also help you pack on the pounds. The large doses of sugar will help contribute to weight gain and the aspartame is said to cause everything from brain damage to cancer. Since energy drinks are loaded with caffeine they also act as a diuretic, removing fluids from the body and resulting in dehydration that can lead to fatigue, impaired cognition, and lowered performance.  This is why only freshmen study on Red Bull.

4. White bread: The saying goes “the whiter the bread, the quicker you’re dead.” Black people in 1950s Mississippi had a similar motto. And there is some truth to it, about the bread part. Research has shown that people who consume more refined products (like white bread and white pasta) are much more likely to gain weight. Since white bread contains very little nutrients, all you do is fill up on worthless empty calories. Worse, the high levels of high glycemic carbohydrates and starches in white bread help clog up your arteries with excess LDL cholesterol as the body tries to metabolize it. As a result your body ends up storing more fat.

5. TV: OK, so TV isn’t technically a food, but it is one of the biggest contributors to getting fat. And college students have a knack of spending way too much time in front of it, especially if they’re having a hard time adjusting to college life and making new friends. For every two hours spent watching TV, a person’s risk for becoming obese increases by 23%. This is attributed to the brainwashing effects of food advertising, increased calorie consumption, unhealthy eating, slowing down of the metabolism, and the tendency of people to eat more at succeeding meals. Fun fact: watching TV requires less energy than just sitting on a chair or lying on a bed doing nothing.

Pretty much anything you eat on campus is going to be bad for you in one way or another, but cutting out just a few foods will ensure you never have to do the walk of shame at dawn because your previous night’s partner doesn’t want anyone seeing you walk out of their room. And, you’ll be able to stop posting only aerial headshots of yourself dressed in black - that you took in your bathroom mirror - as your Facebook profile pics.

Life's good for the non-fatties.

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