It is sometimes overlooked or forgotten about, but the environment has a large effect a person. Parents, peers and surroundings can affect the way a person reacts to a situation or how he chooses to maintain his health.

Living on campus places students in a unique environment, in which choices are endless, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle becomes more difficult to the average student. With bars on almost every corner and Green Street lined with fast-food restaurants that can deliver at all hours of the night, it can create quite the dilemma for any Illini.

Jane Sobczak, sophomore in Business, said that when she moved into her sorority house, the appeal to order in became more prevalent. 

“Living in (a Greek house) made it a lot harder because when one girl decides to get food at night, it becomes really tempting for the rest of us to just cave in,” she said.

Despite the temptations, Rebecca Roach, professor of food science and human nutrition, said the health of a college student depends on multiple “bad habit” factors, such as regular exercise, eating and sleep. It is necessary for a student to develop a good support system at the University in order to maintain a regular, healthy schedule, according to Roach. 

In her opinion, the most detrimental habit the average college student has is irregular eating. 

“Their time is compressed and (students) choose to make ill choices by eating at restaurants, but it is necessary to eat whole fruits and vegetables,” she said. “There are plenty of fruits and vegetables in mess halls, and even though the fried food may look better, you still need those sources of vitamins, even if they come from a can.”

Choosing the healthier option, however, can be difficult at times — especially when a student is a vegetarian and the environment they live in is often unaccommodating to their dietetic needs.

Tess McNulty, vegetarian and sophomore in Media, said her biggest struggle when eating in the dining halls of her dorm was trying to find something healthy that didn’t have meat in it. Although the dining hall offers vegetarian and vegan options, McNulty said she would usually choose pasta or anything with bread because of the limited selection.  

Roach said it is more difficult for women in the college environment to maintain a healthy lifestyle because they are more likely to try to decrease caloric intake. Also, the foods individuals choose to eat in their early 20s become the foundation of overall health for the rest of their life. 

Therefore, it is especially important, Roach said, to remember the environment one lives in when thinking of the necessary vitamins. For example, living in Illinois, vitamin D is not prevalent in a typical diet; therefore, it is necessary to find foods that can accommodate this need. Fish and eggs are examples of options rich in vitamin D. 

Environment controls how a person lives on an everyday basis; therefore, when living in an environment that is dictated by fast food and bars, it is necessary to remember healthy eating, sleeping and exercise habits. 

Living away from parents for the first time can create a barrage of decisions for any student, and one should remember how decisions made today can affect the rest of their life.

Remember not to let the environment dictate the person, but the person dictate the environment.

Christen can be reached at [email protected].