By
Jose Ceja
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Fast food and eating disorders can lead to unhealthy
If leaving mom's cooking behind has left some students at a loss to eat well and stay healthy, Andrew Weil, director of the UA Program in Integrative Medicine, may have some solutions.
Weil, an internationally known doctor, has written several books on integrative medicine, a practice which combines traditional western medicine with alternative approaches.
Weil, who graduated from Harvard University in 1964, said much has changed since he was in college.
Although there is more interest in fitness, Weil said the diets of college students have significantly deteriorated because of the growing popularity of fast food.
"I think it is one of the worst American inventions, and we are successfully exporting it all over the world now," he said.
Although it is inexpensive and satisfying, Weil said fast food is too often abundant in the wrong kinds of fats, carbohydrates and proteins while lacking any nutritional value.
To make matters worse, the media, Weil said, is creating physical ideals for young people that are more influenced by genetics than anything else.
American culture is pressuring young people to conform to the media's image of "fitness," while popularizing fast food and other poor eating habits, creating an ideal impossible for many to attain, he said.
Bulimia and smoking for women and misguided weight lifting for men can be dangerous attempts to conform, Weil said.
"We don't imagine that we can control our height, and in some ways our weight and body size are also strongly genetically determined," he said.
While weight lifting can be useful for improving bone mass and cardiovascular health, doing it to "get big," Weil warned, can lead people to take supplements, "some of which may not be that healthy."
"I think doing it for appearance is not particularly intelligent," Weil said.
Gale Begeman, a UA nutrition counselor with Campus Health services, said that about 30 percent of the students she treats have some form of eating disorder - in part attributable to the media.
"Over-exercising, purging, laxatives, vomiting are all common," she said.
"If your body size genetically is larger than what is put out by Hollywood, then what you really want to focus on is keeping yourself as healthy and fit as possible," Weil said.
Whole grain breads, fresh fruit, soy products, fish, salads, pita bread, hummus, pasta, vegetables and Greek salad are all relatively healthy meals that should be in the food budget of most college students, Weil said.
For more affluent students, Weil recommends sushi as a low-fat, healthy meal, although that the freshness of the fish is something to be wary of.
"I like sushi - in fact I am eating it tonight," said Weil.
Eating well, Weil said, can have other benefits, such as improved brain function.
Foods such as salmon and sardines, which are high in omega-3 fatty acids, can affect memory and optimal brain functioning, Weil said.
With a properly functioning brain, many students may turn to caffeine to enhance and prolong its operation, something Weil said can be useful in moderation.
"I think caffeine is fine situationally but the problem is too many young people get addicted to coffee," he said.
Caffeine is too often used to relieve negative symptoms, Weil added, instead of to promote positive ones.
"I think in general, young people don't think about the long-range consequences of their lifestyle, and the patterns that you develop in your late teens and 20s are often the patterns that persist throughout life," he said.
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