2008 Woodie Awards
Students staying in shape
MTSU health and wellness officials give advice on looking fit and eating right
Brian Estes
Issue date: 6/4/08 Section: Features
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But wait, how healthy is that meal you're being served?
Sometimes, that meal can be as simple as grabbing a pizza from Pizza Hut, but that may not be the best way to avoid unwanted weight. Would you like to avoid unwanted weight or the infamous Freshman 15? Would you like to feel better about yourself? The following words could be very important.
If you want to stay fit, where do you begin? The campus recreation center is a good starting place. Jerry Langham, fitness director at the recreation center, says self-motivation is the biggest key to success. There are guidelines for those who may not be in a regular workout routine.
"It would definitely help them to try to get a personal trainer," Langham says. "A fitness assessment is done to identify people who don't work hard enough or who work too hard to make sure they don't hurt themselves."
Activities the recreation center offers include racketball, soccer, basketball, weight lifting and swimming.
Another activity that's popular among many students is climbing the rock wall. You get tethered in and attached to a rope so you can start scaling the approximately 30-foot-tall wall safely.
For those who have never tried it, climbing the wall is very physically demanding, and will test your upper
body strength while also
presenting many psychological challenges.
As you climb, you'll find the footholds along the face of the wall aren't always positioned in the most convenient places. This means you'll have to decide whether you've got a good enough grip on the handholds to shift your weight as you move your leg from one foothold to the next. And not all the footholds will afford you an equal level of balance.
Just remember to be careful and not to look down. If you're inexperienced, you may become detached from the wall at least once, but it's okay because the climbing wall staff will be there at the end of the rope to make sure you don't fall.
After finishing your first climb, you may experience severely sore forearms and a solid layer of sweat formed across your forehead. But hey, it's not that bad for only about a 20-minute workout.
If you can manage to get into a regular exercise routine, you're doing a great job and on the right track to staying in shape.
But what about eating healthy? Fortunately, confiding in a diet of carrots and celery isn't necessary. There are ways of gradually breaking into healthier eating habits right on campus.
Richard Chapman, director of Student Health Services, offers a few suggestions.
As a general rule, it's important to eat three meals per day, Chapman says. Often, students may skip meals in order to get to a class, finish a paper or do whatever else.
"An iced coffee is not a substitute for breakfast," Chapman says. "It's okay to grab smaller meals throughout the day, such as maybe eating a banana or a bowl of cereal between classes."
Portion control is also important, Chapman says. It's okay to have a hamburger, but don't have five in a week. If there's leftover pizza in your dorm refrigerator, grab one piece and leave the other two or three behind.
"Doing as many things as you can to stay active is just as, if not more, important than eating three meals and portion control," says Chapman. "Taking the stairs instead of the elevator, riding your bike across campus, and parking at the back of the parking lot to give yourself a longer walk are all examples of good ways to stay active."
Still, many people have a hard time sticking to a diet plan. But why is this?
"If I knew the answer to that, I'd be rich!" Chapman jokes. "It often comes from bad habits from family. If they aren't reinforced by people around them, it becomes hard to stick with it over time."
He adds that some students are unable to develop healthy habits because of over scheduling when it comes to classes or work. He says this can take away from a student's time to work out and to eat healthy.
Practicing these dieting tips can help students avoid
the infamous freshman 15, and can help prevent conditions that typically develop later in life, such as high blood pressure, vascular disease and diabetes.
Once you've made these practices into habits, is it possible to eat healthy at the KUC cafeteria?
With more than 2,500 students being served there a day, it's an important question. Chapman says he thinks you can still eat healthy at the KUC. And their management points out that many healthy options are offered.
Stacey Clevenger, retail operations manager for the KUC grill, says there's an even split between healthier and less healthy choices offered at the KUC. However, he notes that the healthier items comprise only about a fourth of the overall sales.
He says there are fresh fruits, yogurts, parfaits and The Zoca - a taco salad which can be made with a choice of beef, chicken or portabella mushrooms. Grab-and-go salads and char broiled chicken sandwiches from Chik-Fil-A are also healthy food suggestions.
"As we move to offer more healthy options, we like to take suggestions from the students on things they'd like to see," Clevenger says. "They are welcome to make appointments to speak with a manager or resident district manager. To do so, students should make an appointment in Room 204 of the KUC."
John Tate, the resident district manager, adds, "I would say [the biggest obstacles preventing students from eating healthy] is their home training. You have to have a mindset. We have a tendency to do what we've always done in the past."
Many health professionals say ultimately one of the biggest keys to being healthy and staying fit is to have self-motivation.
Jerry Langham echoed this logic by saying the goal is to make a pact with yourself and promise you will follow through with what you intend to do. But the important thing is to never quit and to not become so discouraged that you give up.
Sometimes the road to being fit and eating nutritious foods can be a lot like the rock wall. You might loose your grip, but if you happen to slip, just swing back over and keep climbing. If you stick with it, eventually the peak will come into view.
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