Stressed students and eating patterns

Where would we be without surveys? I mean, take the latest headline this week: ‘Stressed university students are eating for comfort’. No, you don’t say.

I lost count of the number of people who go to nutritionists and come back with a hilarious-if-it-weren’t-sad eating plan- Kristina Chetcuti

We learnt that one in five university students turns to fatty or high-sugar “comfort food” to cope with stress during their studies.

I got slightly woozy when the survey suggested stress management programmes for our students to help them maintain a healthy diet under pressure.

I’m pondering, right now, whether I should enrol on one such programme. I’m comfort eating as I write this. I’m stressed because it’s cold and I can’t type and I’m way past my deadline.

Should I or should I not? According to my sister, it would be pointless as I’d relapse every week with the looming deadline crisis.

The thing is, I was almost relieved that our students have “rather unhealthy” eating habits. For once, at least, they have something in common with their counterpart on the continent.

For, let’s face it, are there any students anywhere in the world who eat healthily? Many years ago, my menu as a student in London varied from cereal without milk for breakfast, to cereal bars for lunch and then cereal with milk for supper. Sundays were for baked beans on toast.

That doesn’t mean that today I still live on a cereal drip. You adapt and change your food patterns according to your lifestyle.

So my question is: out of all sections of Maltese society, did we really have to look into the dietary habits of university students? The energy spent there would have been better directed at trying to tap into other, more crucial, elements. Such as the dietary habits of our very own nutritionists.

I lost count of the number of people who go to nutritionists and come back with a hilarious-if-it-weren’t-sad eating plan.

The latest one was during my sojourn in hospital earlier last month. A friendly obese lady next to me showed me the diet plan suggested to her by the visiting hospital nutritionist that morning.

Give or take, the list was something of the sort: Breakfast – three pieces of weetabix; Elevenses snack – a piece of toast or an apple; Lunch – a baguette or ftira with one slice of ham and sliced cheese; Supper – pizza or 150 grams of pasta; Drinks – water, or if preferred, diet soft-drinks (‘diet’ is underlined), oh, or fruit juices.

“Would that be fresh fruit juices?” I ask. No, replied the lady as she pointed to the six cartons of juices on her bedside table. “Like these.”

I gave her the list back and politely suggested that she should get a second opinion. And I also suggested that she’d ask about the not-so-beneficial aspartame in diet soft drinks.

Perhaps if we desperately wanted to analyse students, then a different age group should have been targeted: the very young students. Because it is there that the seeds of good eating habits are sown.

If you’ve ever been on holiday to France, you’d realise for example, that obesity is rare. According to the book ‘French kids don’t throw food’ it’s because, from age three, children are exposed to gourmet food.

Here’s what they do at early primary school: A cart is wheeled up, filled with several carving plates. The teacher uncovers and displays each dish: tomato salad in vinaigrette, side dishes of peas, carrots and onions in a tomato sauce, flaky white fish in a light butter sauce, crumbly blue cheese. At each preview, the toddlers nod enthusiastically and then proceed to eat with gusto. And so it is, that from a tender age they are taught the French formula of large protein-heavy lunches and lighter carbohydrate driven dinners, always with vegetables.

They’ll digress when they’re university students, but then they’ll fall back on it when once they settle.

In contrast, the staples in the Maltese diet, from breakfast cereals, to bread and pasta, are not only fattening, but according to leading UK nutritionist John Briffa, pose hazards to health, such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

When addressing a seminar in Malta he said that the key to healthy eating is “to ensure the bulk of the diet is made up of truly healthy foods that also allow the body to control its weight quite automatically.”

If only we instilled these healthy eating patterns from an early age we’d all be fine. Most importantly, we’d stop obsessing about calorie counting, restricted portion sizes and err, stress management programmes. Perhaps we’d all be happy with how we are.

On a final note, check out the short documentary made by Davinia Hamilton, called ‘The beat of her own drum’ (it’s on Youtube). It’s about belly dancers and how much we really should love our body for what it is. Amen.