Dieting isn’t only about eating less than usual because you want to lose weight. The word “diet” involves everything regarding out eating habits.
Anyhow it is extremely important to promote a healthy diet in higher education institutions. The promotion of healthy lifestyle and dieting is good for learners, the staff, and the educators. Besides that, it helps the planet.
Healthy dieting.
The future of our entire planet depends on how to we treat the environment, and this is strictly related to the way we eat.
Lately, there has been a lot of discussion on the green products and a lot of people have been discussing how important it is to preserve our planet and what does it mean for us all. The climate crisis is a worldwide problem which must be fought together.
Apparently, we cannot stop it but if we all act in lessening our footprint on this planet, we can at least try to fight it back. Besides having positive effects on the earth another thing to underline is the health.
Students’ and staff mental and physical health.
Healthy diets have, by no doubt, a positive effect on the health of the students, educators, and the staff. It does not only include the physical but also mental improvement.
By feeling better with themselves and their bodies, students are more focused, and therefore willing to study. The learners are also going to gain more self-confidence which helps them to graduate with better grades and to find a better job in the future.
This is but a positive factor for a higher education institution whose reputation will most likely improve over time. That means a raise in student enrolment rates.
A healthier diet means also a more sustainable diet. Right now, the most important thing is sustainability, but the food sector is one of the most polluting sectors of our planet. A lot of clear water goes on irrigation systems in agriculture.
Moreover, the agriculture industry produces most waste in the world because a lot of products never arrive to the destination because they’re sorted out or because they just rot before they get to the supermarket.
And the last but not the least is animal-based food industry. The latter pollutes more than the plant-based food industry. Tons of hectares of land is deployed to grow the crops to feed the animals in intensive farming plants.
The animal-based food, especially the one coming from intensive farming, is one of the main causes of the holes in the ozone layer.
That happens because fields where food for animals is grown are one of the causes of deforestation. Besides, chemicals used for the disinfestation of these fields will make these lands unusable for decades.
So, it’s extremely important to bend sustainable diet with a healthy diet. The future of our planet and of the humankind depends on this. Plant-based diets require less energy and less land but also in this case there might be problems.
For instance, just think on all of these venomous substances that are used in agriculture to keep the plans safe from parasites or other types of problems. If we eat plant-based food from massive productions, it the chances of eating carcinogenic substances from the antiparasitic poisons are quite high.
The benefits of promoting a healthy diet in universities and colleges.
Therefore, the best solution for promoting a healthy diet in a higher education institution, would be to buy local and to eat local food.
The colleges and universities who choose to offer local food in their canteens, help in sustaining promoting local economy.
This would be part of an example for other educational institutions. Besides that, a lot of students would be interested in enrolling in an education an institution that supports sustainable diets and food.
Besides that, you could also encourage students to open their own forums or blogs about healthy dieting where they can write down their own experiences. The latter would be also great option for international students to include their products and plates and would therefore promote integration.
This also encourages what is called peer learning. Peer learning is learning among a which means that students are learning among other students like them. And this eventually leads to the fact that they feel themselves at their ease at asking questions and/or giving answers when it comes to their diet.
ACS – ASOMI College of Sciences promotes sustainable and healthy lifestyle. Click here to read more articles on health and sustainability by ACS College.
