Freshman Fuel by Mikayla

Freshman Fuel by Mikayla - October 2016 Scholarship Essay

Several teachers have impacted my life over my 23 years – but they were not always the teachers who taught me the most about the academic topic they taught. The teachers that have impacted me were those who taught me things I would need to know during life. My Advanced Placement Calculus teacher was amazing at teaching calculus. I was able to get a 5, the highest score possible, on my AP exam because of his teaching; however, I do not need calculus now, at all. For that reason, if I were to teach an academic subject it would be nutrition, a subject that students can actually apply to their lives.
I was fortunate enough to live in an apartment the last three years of college where I could dictate what I ate and had enough money to pay for the food I wanted. The majority of my groceries were healthy items that would fuel my body instead of harm my body. Freshman year, however, I was mandated to stay on campus and had a meal plan. I tried to make healthy selections, and I did for the most part, but the healthy options were definitely limited. I did learn something from that one year of going to the dining hall. I learned that college kids either do not know how to make healthy decisions or simply do not care. I would see plates piled with pizza and fried chicken. They drank soda, Gatorade, and chocolate milk. It is easy to understand why many freshman gain weight. Not only are they eating terribly but they are drinking alcohol as well and those calories add up. College kids should be required to take a nutrition class their first semester of college.
I took a nutrition class my sophomore year of college and it was a mandatory class for me because of my major. I learned that there are seven calories in each gram of alcohol. SEVEN! Carbohydrates and protein only have four calories per each gram. Most of the students in my major (exercise physiology) knew all these facts though and took good care of their bodies. We were not the students who needed this class but we absorbed the information learned and applied it to our lives. Requiring students to take nutrition their first semester, second semester at the latest, of college will hopefully prevent the weight gain freshman year. Yes, some students will simply not care and continue to eat the fried chicken and pizza every night. However, if a nutrition class can get even some students in the right mind frame that they are fueling their body when they are eating and can help instill a healthy lifestyle in them early into their college career then it is worth it to have every student take nutrition. Students who adopt a healthy lifestyle while in college will most likely continue to live that lifestyle once graduated. This will lead to these students promoting healthy options when they have children and hopefully start to reverse the obesity trend. Sociology, history, and English are all very important, interesting subjects but if I were to teach any subject it would be nutrition, as an attempt to shape the future and stop current health trends.