The University of a Florida offers meal plans for students who wish to have a meal ready for them rather than worrying about what they are going to eat, or perhaps cook, throughout the day. The problem with this idea however, is that students oftentimes do not take full advantage of this system. Whether it is cooking, eating out, or even going home on the weekends, there are several factors that can get in the way of taking full advantage of the meal plan. This dilemma often leaves families asking the same question: is buying the meal plan that is provided by colleges actually worth the money? While buying a meal plan for college appears to make sense for many incoming freshmen, it does not always translate into the most efficient use of their money.
In order to find out how many students make use of their current meal plan, my group went out and surveyed forty students (twenty-three freshmen, six second-years, six third-years, and five fourth-years) currently attending the University of Florida in a face-to-face question format. A majority of the students who were involved in this study were freshmen, as they are the demographic that is the most encouraged to purchase a meal plan for convenience as well as social reasons. The students were asked a set of five questions as follows:
1. What year are you?
2. What type of meal plan do you have?
3. How many times a day, on average, do you eat at the dining halls?
4. How many times a week, on average, do you eat at either the dining halls or places where flex bucks are accepted?
5. How many times a week, on average, do you eat grocery store bought food as a meal?
Answers were listed as in A, B, C format, with each letter representing an answer. Following this survey, students who wer...
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...plan even more of a financial burden. If the number for total number of meals is adjusted for these above factors, and decreases to about 210, that is an average of $9.00 for each meal. This average is more than it costs to enter the dining hall as an outsider who is not on the meal plan. While meal plans are advertised as a convenient use of money that can be put towards food, it is also a big responsibility that must be thought about carefully before making the decision to sign up for one.
Works Cited
"Create an Account, Add Money, or Buy a Student Meal Plan." Gator 1 Central. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. .
Landes, Luke. "How a College Meal Plan Wastes Money." Consumerism Commentary RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. .
...ghner, 1993). It is the authors belief that consumers are aware of their consumption, as well as realize how wasteful they are with food in general For the students who do not fit into Eighner's wasteful category, he presents a grouping of frugal consumers who, "carefully wrap up even the smallest leftover[s] and shove it into the back of the refrigerator for six months or so before discarding it" (Eighner, 1993).
...College students are the next generation of food consumers just starting to purchase and prepare their own food, setting purchasing habits that will follow them into their lives as they start their own careers. These habits will shape what food is in demand, and therefore what food is produced. Not only do college students hold financial power over the future economy, but they must make the decision of whether to become the next unhealthy generation, that will also indoctrinate their children to accept the level of food quality that is currently labeled as junk food as a standard level quality of food.
Though proponents of this method argue that it has lowered meal debt and the amount of families failing to pay, Stacy Koltiska refutes this claim by saying: “[The ones making these policies] are suits at a board meeting… They are not the ones facing a child and looking them in the eye and taking their food away.” While it is irrefutable that debt in schools is a problem that must be tackled, it is not a justifiable excuse to take a child’s midday meal out of his or her hands and throw it into a trash can because his or her parents can not put money into their child’s lunch account. There is no excuse for denying a child a hot meal or making them go hungry during the school day for something that is not their fault. Their dietary and nutritional needs are not a bargaining tool for the school system to use under any
One factor of the freshman 15 is the student’s living environment. Students living on campus in residence halls are more prone to weight gain than students living at home with their parents or off campus (Provencher et al., 2009). This is due to the availability of food on campus at various universities that studies were held. While students living at home with their parents often have home cooked meals, often dining halls in college campuses serve food with an all-you-can eat buffet style, where students are free to eat as much as they like. Students living away from ...
When I arrived here at college I was extremely disappointed with the selection of food here in the cafeteria. I frequently found myself eating only hamburgers and pizza over and over again, simply because I did not like the other choices. About four months into the school year I had do go to the doctor for a virus and when the nurse weighed me I was a little surprised by what I saw. I had gained a little over ten pounds, close enough to what some refer to as the “Freshman 15.” It is a common fear among college students that they are going to gain fifteen pounds during the course of adjusting to college life. However experts have stated that the idea of the so called “Freshman 15,” is not that accurate. Every college student is obviously not going to gain fifteen pounds. However I believe that it is possible and it is a problem for many college students. College life completely changes eating habits among college students. Most students do not make the right choices about eating and exercising. College students across the country are severely unhealthy in their behaviors, and for some students the “Freshman 15” may be a reality.
With an unlimited meal plan and buffet-style meals, do we students know how big our portions should be? If we are accustomed to being served super-sized portions, we might not realize when we are serving ourselves over-sized portions in our dining halls. In fact, researchers have found that increased portion size is an even greater problem in cafeteria settings like ours, noting a positive association between larger food receptacles and increased consumption(2). A correlational study at Cornell found significant weight gain in freshmen during the first twelve weeks of school and identified that both the “all-you-can-eat” dining hall style and student snacking on “junk-food” were key variables explaining a positive linear relationship with weight gai...
The intake of proper nutrients helps balance the maintenance of bodily functions; supporting the longevity of a healthy lifestyle. (Denton, Carolyn. “How does food Impact Health?” www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu). With constant technological advance in the world, it is important to become aware of how frequent the world changes daily in preparation for self-maturity. What is a more effective way to approach the real world than to have a direct experience? The researcher will address the topic on why community high schools in America should allow its students off campus during lunch. Allowing children to have a better lunch option could help educational strength as well as attend to other essential needs. (Anderson, Melinda. “Do healthy lunches
In all the freedom and choices a college student can face, food is a major one. The campus cafeteria selection...
Christie, Kathy. “Stateline: Even Students Are What They Eat.” The Phi Delta Kappan 84.5 (2003): 341-342. PDF file.
The anticipation of attending college floods teenagers with numerous thoughts. Living on their own, going to class when they please, staying out as late as they want, and surviving on food the dining hall provides or what they buy at the grocery store. More free time, or lack there of, may bring students spinning downwards towards bad eating habits and malnutrition. Rolling out of bed five minutes before class means grabbing a coffee on the way. Too much homework or a big project might mean skipping a healthy dinner and cooking some Ramen noodles or snacking on chips all night. This is where the “convenience foods” come in which are factory made dishes or meals that only need to be heated up or need just one or two additional ingredients.
Toly, D. (2005). "What's in the Package?" Rethinking Grab-and-Go Lunches. Journal of Nutrition Education & Behavior, 37S113-S114.
For this reason, it is financially damaging every time a student misses a meal swipe they can’t afford losing. They have enough trouble paying for college as it is so students have to get the most out of every meal swipe. At Ball State, there are 4 types of meal plans; You can choose a plan that offers three meals every day (21 meal plan), or you can select a plan that provides only 10, 14, or 18 meals a week with varying amounts of Dining Plus dollars. Students are also given a certain amount of money for each meal, and specific times they are able to use their meal swipe. From 7am-10:30am (breakfast), students can use up to $4.65, from 10:30am to 4:30pm (lunch), students can use $8.20, and from 4:30pm-12:am (dinner), students are given $8.20. Each meal that is not used is a waste of money for that student. For example, if I had classes back to back from 10:00 to 5:00, I wouldn’t be able to eat lunch and the money from my lunch meal swipe wouldn’t roll over to my dinner meal swipe. This system is unfair for students with busy
The cafeteria is not merely a place for small children; now that I am in college, I spend more time in the cafeteria than ever. Living in the dorms, I have no kitchen or any other place to cook. Instead, I have a meal plan that offers me fourteen meals each week at the Stanford/Hecht cafeteria. I eat lunch and dinner there as my two meals on most days. But, I do not and cannot go to the cafeteria and just get food. I get much more.
expense of going out to eat and will save the time wasted in driving to a restaurant,
People eat food every day without thinking twice about it, because it is a necessity for us to live. How often do you think about what is in the foods that you eat? How many calories does it have? Are there any vitamins and minerals in it? Is it high in fat? For most of us and especially college students who live a busy life on the go, the answer to that question is probably no. Since becoming a recent graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania Academy of Culinary Arts, I have been more interested in food and what people are eating. Also since more young Americans are becoming obese I want to find out what they are eating and where. Going to college and seeing how students have poor eating habits I want to find out why they are eating this way. Is it because they are away from home for the first time? Or is it because that is the only food that is available for them? I also want to find out if students would eat healthier if it was provided for them? My hypothesis is that students eat unhealthy because it is more convenient for them. There is usually no time to cook a homemade meal and most college students are always in a hurry so it is easier to pick up takeout. Also most college students don’t know how to cook. I also believe that most college students don’t care if the food is unhealthy for them, as long as it tastes good. Hopefully, in the following pages I will uncover the wide world of college eating.