For Alena Boud, her freshman year at BYU involved more struggles than simply getting along with roommates and surviving college classes.
The challenge of grocery shopping and cooking for herself with little experience, limited time and the typical strained college budget was a heavy weight on her mind.
“I had never started from scratch,” Boud explained. She found it more difficult than expected to cook healthy, convenient meals that could be bought with cheap ingredients.
“I would buy stuff, and then I’d realize, oh, wait, I totally needed this basic thing that I don’t have in my apartment,” she said.
Boud eventually found her rhythm, sticking to cheap meals like beans and rice and choosing to skip on snacks in order to save money for trips back home and outings with friends.
While Boud struggled financially to create a healthy diet, Abbie Summers, another student at BYU, found it challenging to eat regular meals with her hectic college schedule.
During her freshman year, Summers got a job on campus that required her to work evenings and kept her away from home until late at night.
“I would work and then I would get home and just be starving,” Summers said. “I usually ended up eating things that are not healthy just because they were faster to make.”
Boud’s and Summer’s experiences with college eating is not unusual. For many college freshmen, it is their first time living away from home and learning to cook for themselves. Within the first week of college, they are confronted with the stark reality that they are the only ones who will be stocking the pantry and putting food on the table.
Elyce Gamble, a dietician based in Utah, is an advocate for prioritizing healthy eating, especially during the college years.
“Take time to prioritize your nutrition. That doesn't mean that you need to be taking out two hours every day to cook these fancy meals, but I would say nutrition really does impact every other aspect, especially your academics,” she said.
But not everyone thinks about nutrition when deciding what to eat.
An article from Pew Research details the approaches Americans have to eating. According to their research, 45% of Americans say that the statement, “I usually eat whatever is easy and most convenient,” describes them fairly well.
This focus on time and convenience in eating habits is even more of a priority in college students. However, studies show establishing good dietary habits is critical during the young adult years because it will drastically influence one's relationship with food and health trajectory in the years to come.
A study from Cambridge University published in early 2024 says that “as young adults gain independence when transitioning from adolescence to young adulthood, they face a multitude of challenges related to healthy food choices. This period also brings about a new set of behavioural patterns related to weight control, excessive alcohol consumption and low levels of physical activity. As these behaviours can lead to negative health outcomes, it is crucial to identify interventions to enable young adults prioritise their health and make informed choices.”
For Summers, she began making these informed choices about healthy eating through her intentional efforts to learn about meal prepping.
“It took me a couple of years to figure out how to make it work for me, but then it has been really helpful,” said Summers.
Her meal prepping typically consists of preparing a large meal on Sundays for her dinners, freezing several sandwiches to save for lunches and making baked oatmeal for quick and easy breakfasts each morning.
Summers says that one of the biggest benefits to meal prepping is the flexibility it gives her.
“It allows me to work things around my scheduling. I don’t have to be tied down to needing to make food or worrying about that at all,” she said.
Some may be intimidated by the thought of meal prepping a full week’s worth of meals. For those college students who have the desire to begin healthy habits but don’t know where to start, BYU Women’s Resources offers free, one-on-one nutrition consultations for all students and staff.
Logann Smith is the current dietician conducting the nutrition consultations. She says the most common questions students ask her are what healthy eating looks like as a college student and how to eat nutritiously under a budget with very little time.
During the thirty-minute appointments, Smith focuses on tailoring the consultation to meet the student’s needs.
“I’ve met with a lot of different types of people, different spots in their relationship with food,” Smith explained. “Oftentimes people come in maybe feeling a little discouraged … we talk and it’s fun to see the shift in mood.” Smith finds it rewarding to see her clients become empowered.
Boud and her husband attended one of Smith’s nutrition consultations. Boud said one of the most insightful things she learned was debunking the myths about healthy eating and realizing how simple it can be to eat a balanced diet when you have the correct tools. Boud and her husband enjoy using an infographic from the consultation that helps them make sure they are eating a variety of food.
“Every time we have a meal we’re like, ‘I wonder if all of the food groups are in here? Here’s a protein, here’s a fat, here’s a carb, oh, we’re missing a fiber. Let’s see if we can find something in our pantry that’ll give us that,'” said Boud.
BYU Women's Services also offers a support group for women who are recovering from disordered eating.
For those who are interested in attending the 10-week support group, sign up here to attend the winter semester session.