Final Essay Food on Campus

Steven McGuffee
English 102
Ryan Davidson
November 14, 2007
Food on Campus
On Southern Miss campus, the food situation is not all that great. There should be a mandatory law by the state saying that foods provided on school grounds needs to be of a certain health level. If food was healthier, I believe that students would eat more on campus, and less often in other restaurants.
There are some things need to be improved quickly, if those at Southern as wishing to keep students buying meal tickets. For example, at the current time the food in the Common’s area, is so greasy and un-healthy, that very few students eat there on a regular basis. Since students that live on campus are required to buy a meal ticket, they must eat a campus in order to not waste money. However, most students will not eat enough to get their monies worth in food. Since the meal ticket is on average of one thousand dollars, and few students eat that much at the commons, the meal is costing much more than it is actually worth.
Most of the restaurants on campus do provide food that is actually healthy, and the common’s does on some occasions. However, most of the food they provide is full of grease and fat is both un-healthy, and un-appetizing. To improve the situation, the school could hire a new food company that does provide better, healthier food that would reach out to students. A new company that would provide food that students actually like to eat would make more business, because students would come there to eat, and actually get their monies worth that they are forced to buy.
Even though I do not live on campus, I am often on campus around lunch and dinner time. Instead of eating on campus and using the money I have in my account for food, I would rather spend my other money on food of campus that is better tasting and healthier for me. Since obesity is becoming such a problem for students, and people everywhere for that matter, the school should want to provide a better menu. It seems as if the school is only worried about collecting the money from students, and less about giving the students something in return. If obesity was really a concern, than there would not be as many fast food places to grab food on campus, and more places such as Subway, or salad bars.
I feel that the majority of students do prefer to eat healthy, but it is easier to eat the un-healthy foods because they are popping up everywhere on campus ( and Hattiesburg for that matter. ) I feel that the building called Seymour’s inside the Hub would receive more business if they would remove the Mexican restaurant, and hire a eatery such as Subway. Mexican foods such as that are filled with fast and grease that leads to future health problems, but if people can learn to eat healthy at a young age, than all those problems can be avoided.
Eating fast foods or foods that are filled with harmful ingredients will lead to health problems. For example, every time someone eats foods such as those, it clogs the arteries a little. Over time, all that builds up and can lean to heart problems or diabetes. These problems will not reveal themselves for years, and since is so, then people will continue to eat poorly until the problem is out of control. Since schools hire more fast foods to come in to provide food on campus than they do healthy foods, the problems with obesity and heart disease is unlikely to decrease in the near future.