For some Duke students, eating well and looking good go hand in hand.
The Duke University Student Dining Advisory Committee discussed healthy eating and nutritional information with Franca Alphin, director of nutrition services at Student Health, at its meeting Monday night.
In comparison with other schools, Duke students place more emphasis on being healthy, Alphin said.
“Duke is an extreme in that we have few overweight people compared to other universities,” she said.
She added that Duke students eat more fruits and vegetables and exercise more on average than students from peer institutions such as Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“I think people here go through negative freshman 15 instead of gaining 15 pounds,” said committee member Jane Moore, a junior. “It’s really different from what I have seen at other schools.”
Alphin noted that students might be motivated to eat well and lose weight in order to “look good,” adding that the campus culture may drive students to become overly cautious about their food choices.
“About 80 percent of Duke students will go through an unhealthy relationship with eating at some point during the four years here,” she said.
She clarified that this unhealthy relationship does not necessarily constitute an eating disorder. The statistic includes people who experience minor problems with eating, such as purposely skipping a meal to lose weight.
DUSDAC also discussed factors that affect appetite, psychological effects on eating, mechanisms of digesting and how to maintain a balanced diet.
“When [Alphin] talked about Duke students being healthy, I thought, ‘wow, she’s right,’” Schreiber said. “In high school I noticed quite a few obese people, but around here I don’t even think about it.”
In other business:
During the next few weeks, DUSDAC members will each pair up with an on-campus eatery to better foster relations between food vendors and students.
Each committee member picked two vendors of his or her choice. At the end of each semester, members will give presentations about their chosen vendors to the rest of the committee.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.