A busy student can only perform well if in good health.  This means you have to watch what and how you eat if you seriously want to perform well.  During COVID-19 times it is even more challenging. However, ultimately healthy eating is going to be the difference between whether you shoot the lights out or not!

Prioritize your health to build wealth

Students who can create time to eat well and rest properly, irrespective of their numerous busy schedules and workloads, as a rule, can boast with great health.  The practice of healthy eating for college students should be as important as their grades. Students’ approach towards eating well in college should be to the degree they pay close attention to class attendance and examinations.

Healthy student living

The biggest distraction any student can have in college is being unhealthy. A good definition of being healthy means a state of complete mental, physical, and social well-being. Being completely healthy should be a concern at college, just as a good grade is a major concern for all serious students. Being healthy can also mean total wellness.

There are laid down principles for students in maintaining good health. Though students’ tight schedules threaten these principles, yet the principles must be dutifully followed.

Poor diet habits

Students who want to meet up with several deadlines, as a rule, have no time to eat healthily and prefer eating junk or any food they can get on the go. However, these foods have caused a lot of health damages to the undergraduates. The consequences of consuming these junk foods will be clearly seen in the future, when students start having problems with obesity, blood pressure, etc. What’s a student without sound health?

Warning signs such as dizziness are so easy to ignore, yet they may be an indicator of poor diet. They may be pointers to some dangers that require medical attention. Here are five consequences of a poor diet:

1. Constant Pain

One of the consequences of a poor diet is chest pain, which causes a lot of trouble to a person. The pain moves along the spine from the neck region down to the back. Often, it results in shortness of breath, convulsion, retardation in speech, and in complex situations like paralysis.

2. Dizziness

The term dizziness is described as a range of conditions like fainting, being weak or unsteady. Dizziness transforms into vertigo when it creates a false sense or feeling that your surrounding is spinning or moving when you are actually at a fixed or unmoved state.

3. Excess sweat

This is also a consequence of poor health. Sweating is a natural body function that involves the production of fluid from the skin pores as a response to change in temperature. Health status gets worse whenever sweating comes without being caused by changes in temperature.

4. Body Part Numbness

It’s not a rare thing when students feel numbness. The body part feels dead and refuses to respond to stimuli.

5. Swelling

Swelling may be as a result of hemorrhage, a condition that causes loss of blood.

If you want to avoid the mentioned above conditions, better lead a healthy lifestyle and try to get rid of stress as much as possible when getting your degree.

How to Eat Healthy in College

Below are some ways to eat healthy in college:

1. Take a Balanced Diet

A lot of students are quick to say they are eating, but only very few of them end up eating with the consciousness of what should be in a balanced meal. Workload should not affect your balanced diet as well as the lack of time to cook in the dorm.

A good meal should have the right proportion and the number of different nutrients. A good meal should contain protein, carbs, fat, vitamins before it can be said to be a balanced diet.

Foods are usually grouped based on their general functions. Foods in a particular class can be substituted for others as long as they are in the same class. Eating different food that is of the same class will be so wrong and unhealthy.

As a rule, ensure that all food classes are adequately represented in different proportions in your meal. Avoid too much processed food, sweetened beverages, fortified margarine, and fat to keep your cholesterol levels under check.

2. Drink Lots of Clear Water

Eating well is never completed until good, colorless, odorless, and tasteless water is taken with the food. Carbonated drinks and fruit juice must not be used instead of water. Keeping yourself hydrated by drinking a lot of water will do your body good.

A man can survive without food for up to a hundred days but will die of dehydration if he misses water for just three days. Blood is the primary carrier of nutrients and oxygen in the body. Still, it will surprise you to know that 75% of the blood component is water. Eating a good meal can be too much for the body and can lead to unrest, but water can never be too much for any man. The more is your water intake, the more toxins are flushed out of your body.

3. Eat More Fruits and Vegetables

You don’t have to be a vegetarian before you include fruits in your diet. There should be days set apart for fruits and vegetables only. Aside from all the nutrients they both supply, eating fruits alone eases the digestive system. Fruits lower your risk of chronic illnesses like obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, certain eye diseases, and dementia. Fruit are relevant sources of many nutrients, including:

• Potassium, which regulates fluid balance, helps in muscle contractions, relaxation, and nerve signals. Often, the body needs a potassium and sodium balance to keep the heart in proper shape and function.
• Fibers are not nutritious. However, they are important to keep your digestive system healthy. Most fruits are rich in fibers, and it is important for those whose aim is to stay healthy always to eat the fleshy part of their washed, clean fruits.
• Vitamins help in the development and repair of all body cells and tissues. They could be fat-soluble or water-soluble. Fruits are natural sources of all kinds of vitamins.
• Folate or folic acid helps in the production and maintenance of new cells, and they also prevent changes to DNA that may lead to cancer.

The common temptation of a busy college student with fruits is that a lot of them substitute eating their fruits with drinking it as fruit juice. Unfortunately, many fruit juices are not made from real fruits. There are several additives, preservatives, and sugar in fruit juice that can reduce the quality of the vitamins in the end product. Meanwhile, some fruit juices only have fruit flavors without any blended fruit in them. The absence of fiber with the quantity of sugar in fruit juices increases its palatability. So, more quantity is consumed, causing several diseases.

4. Avoid the Odd Hour Meal

For foods to be well digested and utilized by your body, the time of eating is significant. Many students pay attention to the food they eat but ignorantly pay less attention to the time they eat it.

Food eaten at the right time is healthy, but those products eaten at the wrong time are poisons to the body. Breakfast is expected to be eaten latest by 9 am, while dinner, eaten anytime later than 7:30 pm, can cause digestive risk. Health challenges like heartburn and constipation are associated with eating so late at night. So, if you have this habit, better get rid of it, and you will feel much better for sure.

5. Remember About Solid Food Rule

Heavy carbohydrates and proteins may require more time to digest. Hence, such food should not be eaten as dinner at bedtime. Sleeping slows down digestion in the body, that’s why heavy meals taken at night regularly contribute to the fat buildup of the adipose tissues. Solid meals should be eaten at the most active hours of the day so that the body can digest them easily.

Having taken care of what to eat and time to eat them, there are other important cautions you must take to boost healthy eating in college, especially if you are a busy learner.

6. Stay Away From Fried Foods

There are different ways college students prepare their meals. A lot of them prefer frying or grilling meat and fish than just boiling or smoking them. While deep frying makes food more delicious than just boiling it, it is important to know that deep-frying reduces protein quality.

Several chemical reactions take place with the animal protein as the frying oil is heated, and it’s temperature raises. These reactions lead to the formation of toxic compounds that can cause cancer or other heart diseases. Alternative ways of cooking include boiling, pressure cooking, baking, or smoking. These are more preferred than frying your food. Food should be an immune booster, not a toxin source.

7. Eat More Homemade Meals

Except for those who get pleasure from cooking, the majority of college students will prefer to eat at restaurants than prepare their meals at home. Some students complain that the time spent cooking is sufficient to do many other outside classroom works. However, they seem to forget that cooking can be simultaneously done with other things like reading, checking college homework help websites, or even chores.

Subsequently, eating in college should be deliberate, no matter how busy you are. As a college student, try to create time to cook your food, the same way you schedule for other important school activities. As much as possible, avoid eating at the restaurant. Eating homemade meals is cheaper than eating in eateries. You know about the quality of all ingredients used as well as the cooking procedures and environment when you cook yourself.

Research reveals that the challenge most college students have is time management. They have loads of work to be done over a short period. This lack of time makes them resort to eating unhealthy foods and drinks. Therefore, the best approach is to visit websites of professional online writing services. If you always question yourself – Who can do my homework?  Better find a reliable online helper and ask for help with some work so that you can have more time to your advantage.

The bottom line

When you start following the tips mentioned above, ensure that you exercise daily. This will help to boost your appetite and equally will help to increase the quality and quantity of what you eat. Exercise helps to lose weight and lower the risk of some diseases like obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. It also helps to keep your body at a healthy weight and helps to prevent aging. Eat healthily and be a well-performing student!

 

Eating healthy is fun. Learn from Shakira’s healthy eating habits.