For a lot of college students, living alone is a brand-new experience. Amid pushing through classwork and maintaining a social life, staying healthy can be a cumbersome task. For many students, me included, work often takes priority over necessities like food and sleep. It’s not uncommon to resort to ultraprocessed, cheap, ready-to-eat meals.
I’m a first-year student at the University of Washington. My Mondays and Wednesdays are packed with events from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., but my Tuesdays and Thursdays are practically free. It’s a fair claim that the busier one gets, the less time one can spend finding a nearby dining hall; as a result, cup ramen and instant mac-and-cheese become preferable. This is especially true for students staying in the dorms, most of whom generally do not have the time nor ingredients to prepare a whole meal.
But while these unhealthy options, and phrases like “freshman 15,” a term referring to weight gain in one’s first year of college, are accepted as the norm in college culture, they’re not without consequence.
To learn more about the nuances in college dining habits and the impacts on student health, I spoke with Michelle Averill, a UW nutritionist.
“I think it comes back to this idea of how often are people making a conscious choice to eat healthy versus an ‘I’m hungry, I’m going to walk in and eat what I want to eat,’ ” she explained. “There’s always that balance of how you choose food, and how much of it is a conscious choice for healthfulness and quality versus availability and taste.”
Averill refers to the aforementioned cup ramen or instant mac-and-cheese as “high-fat, high-sugar (and) ultraprocessed” — characteristics that denote a meal as “unhealthy.”
While any physical harms of these eating habits over four years in college are likely reversible, Averill notes the impact of unhealthy eating habits on one’s mental health — specifically, research into the gut-brain axis.
The gut-brain axis is a communication network between the gastrointestinal tract and the central nervous system in the human body. Averill said some research suggests an ultraprocessed diet can break down the gut-brain axis, adversely impacting mental health. Heightened intake of ultraprocessed foods has been linked to a higher risk of depression.
However, no statement to do with diet is a blanket one, and part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle is listening to your body. It can be harmful to oversimplify the issue and claim that people are hurting their mental health if they eat poorly.
So there needs to be a balance here, between healthy options that hit all the food groups and food that makes us satisfied. And how would we find that?
Averill has one piece of advice: “Thoughtful planning. I think the best way is to think ahead toward your day and to identify what are the foods that really feel best nourishing for us. And that’s going to be different for everyone.”
Here, planning refers to taking the time necessary to decide on foods that would work to fuel our body best, specifically, meals that hit all the food groups. This way, we aren’t left deciding at the last minute and resorting to something ultraprocessed.
I’ve been following this habit a lot in my own college life. I take time out of my mornings to browse UW’s dining app on my phone and decide where and when I want to eat, figuring out whether I want to stick to my usuals or try something new. I’ve found through this experience that Averill is right: Having a plan does help with making healthier choices, from knowing what times I need to be at the dining hall and planning my day accordingly to finding comfort in the fact that I’ve hit all the food groups.
Averill describes her utopic resolution: “We would all have spaces to have lunches at common times together and have a space for community as well … that’s what it would take to change the food environment on campus.”
I would add another suggestion: improve the diversity of food options on campus. UW, like many colleges, welcomes students from all over the world, all of whom have varying relationships with food largely influenced by their cultures. Food options that reflect a broad range of cuisines and respect dietary restrictions would go a long way to support students having healthy relationships with food.
Improving the culture around eating habits is a problem that’s quite literally up to us to fix. We as individuals deserve to put in the effort it takes to keep ourselves healthy. If we each make the conscious decision to listen to ourselves and to truly understand what foods our bodies need to be healthiest, then we can slowly start to shift this culture of malnutrition. We need sustained energy to fuel us through arguably one of the most pivotal periods in our lives, and for that, we must do ourselves this service.
Editor’s note: This essay is the third in a series contributed by Washington youth through The Seattle Times Student Voices project. This year’s theme focuses on student safety, security and well-being in schools. You can read more about these students and their work as it’s published at st.news/studentvoices2025.