A rant!!! So sick of this place!!!

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Lpfeifer419
Lpfeifer419 Posts: 82
in Motivation and Support
I am a college student and am working on a degree in business management. Between working out on campus, class, and homework, I am here a lot. We have a fairly active student population, and that is where the problem lies.

Our student government serves food on an almost weekly basis. None of it is healthy. Dips, chips, pizza, butter-smeared popcorn, cakes, and the dreaded soda. The entire time I have been here, not one piece of fruit has been offered during these free meals. So basically, my tutition dollars (which fund student government) are paying for people to eat garbage. They offered two HUGE, full sheet cakes yesterday and today. I have been asked at least a dozen times if I want cake. Thankfully, I have the willpower to say no, but it is annoying nonetheless. And people get SO offended when you politely decline food. I had one coworker actually say that I was just trying to make everyone else look and feel bad, and she was dead serious.

Now I know the solution is to get changes made in the school, and I am working on it. I have a hard time getting behind junk being served here. The cafeteria food will never change. The college is forced to go with the lowest bid and the food ends up being processed junk.

And of course, someone just had to walk by with a bag of McDonald's....

Replies

  • rharris86dc
    rharris86dc Posts: 635 Member
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    I know how you feel! At my school, the SBA loves doing pizza lunches, with soda and sometimes they have done cake too. I think there was only one student org. that did a healthy box lunch, w/ sandwich wraps and fruit.

    I started packing my lunch so I could avoid all of the madness.
  • Kimdbro
    Kimdbro Posts: 922 Member
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    Good for you for taking a stand! I'm always surprised when people don't offer healthy alternatives, it's in the news it's on people's minds everywhere... even at McDonalds they've realized that they need something else on the menu that isn't grease. I hope you're able to insitgate change, they aren't helping anyone by feeding them garbage.
  • bayoucitygirl
    bayoucitygirl Posts: 54 Member
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    Ugh... I hated that about college.

    I do have a suggestion to help fix things though! start a petition to the student government to offer better free food or to stop it all together!
  • JDRBT
    JDRBT Posts: 264 Member
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    I had this happen in my office. I ended up just making a joke out of it and telling people, "It looks better on you than it does on me. Have a peice for me?"

    I hate that eating "snack" food is considered such a "social" event!

    My only recommendation would be to try to come to these things prepared while you're working on the changes in the school. Bring something you can enjoy.

    Oh! And since budgeting seems like a concern - you can remind them that they won't need the huge quanities of crap food that they order now. Healthy food is processed in the body differently, so it fills people up for longer periods of time. One peice of fruit, 2-3 scrambled eggs, and a peice of toast is a pretty inexpensive breakfast, and should do the trick over a couple pastries and crap food.
  • KLaurean
    KLaurean Posts: 112
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    Maybe you could talk to fellow classmates and see if anyone else feels the same. This might be going a little too far and it may be time consuming, but I would consider starting a petition, I'm sure if enough people showed interest the school will take it into consideration that changes do need to be made.
  • KLaurean
    KLaurean Posts: 112
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    Ugh... I hated that about college.

    I do have a suggestion to help fix things though! start a petition to the student government to offer better free food or to stop it all together!

    Haha sorry I stole your idea, I was typing before this was posted :)
  • Kristendcampbell
    Kristendcampbell Posts: 786 Member
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    That is very difficult I am so sorry to hear that. I am older and was in college in the late 80's and our college had a try of fruit out at every meal time and at the place that did take out there was healthy options - I didn't partake in that I wasn't having issues at that point. However, I am very surprised to hear they offer nothing.

    Hopefully you can get them to look at their food planning, even elementary, jr and high schools are big on eating healthy in our area and offer an option A and B for vegetarians
  • SarahWrittenThin
    SarahWrittenThin Posts: 595 Member
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    My school does pizza and stuff alot too but there are also times, like the recent deans list luncheon where we had deli platters, fruit, a veggie tray, cookies, cake, pop and juice. So ours ranges. I think they try to make an effort to serve healthy things because on my campus we are trying to help people stay healthy. We also have free use of the gym and a biggest loser competition. Hope you can help yours do a turn around!
  • jmgj27
    jmgj27 Posts: 531 Member
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    At work, it took months of saying no to the doughnuts, bacon sandwiches and biscuits before people started leaving me alone. You're right - they seem to get offended - it's weird - I'm not offended that they eat it (although I wish it didn't smell so damn good!). People are weird! Willpower full steam ahead! :bigsmile:
  • fromaquasar
    fromaquasar Posts: 811 Member
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    I so agree with you - in a totally different situation but similar frustration I worked in a UK boarding school for two years. In that time we were served chips (fries) regularly at breakfast time, had the choice of 6 desserts at each lunch, and morning and afternoon tea were a choice of white bread toast or cake or biscuits, fruit wasn't even available. Now I was 20 and relatively aware of my choices (that said I was 10kgs heavier at that school then I am now!) but these same foods were being offered to 13-17 year olds. How is that equipping them to make healthy food choices now and later in life. It drove me mental.

    Not to mention this was an extremely expensive public school that the parents were paying thousands and thousands of pounds for and the kids and staff were getting feed crap

    There is hope though - in my second year working there, mostly due to campaigning by Jamie Oliver, schools were only allowed to serve the kids deep fried foods twice a week (no more fries at breakfast time) and fruit was a compulsory snack alternative.

    We still have a long way to go tho!
  • jenilla1
    jenilla1 Posts: 11,118 Member
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    And people get SO offended when you politely decline food. I had one coworker actually say that I was just trying to make everyone else look and feel bad, and she was dead serious.

    Don't let people bully you into making unhealthy choices! Tell that coworker to stop trying to make YOU look and feel bad! :tongue:

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