By Carol Svec
Parents can help prevent potential unhealthy weight gain during their child's college experience by teaching good eating habits long before that critical freshman year.
Ideally, parents should serve as an example of healthy eating habits to their children, starting at a young age. Children tend to do what they see around them and parents need to show them how to eat appropriately, balance portion sizes, choose nutritious foods and avoid snacking on junk food. If a teen-ager sees parents always overeating or never eating fruits and vegetables, he or she is likely to do the same.
In addition, learned behaviors tend to be repeated, so talk with your teen at the first sign of a problem. If a teen-ager eats for stress relief in high school, chances are he or she will eat for stress relief in college.
Before a teen-ager heads off to college, parents should talk with the child about the importance of a healthy diet. Don't hound, just discuss the facts. Teen-agers need to recognize that things at college will be very different from what they have known at home. There may be many temptations, including lots of food. They need to have specific plans for dealing with the temptations when they arise. For example:
- Become aware of habits. The first step to changing old habits — or avoiding new ones — is to become conscious of them. Many people say, "I don't know why I just ate that, I wasn't even hungry." But at that point it's too late. Until you are aware of habitual behaviors, it is impossible to stop them from happening.
- Plan meals. Most campus cafeterias post the week's menus in advance. Plan which items you will eat before entering the cafeteria, where the smells of high-fat foods can be tempting.
- Time meals. Some students sit in the cafeteria for hours, using it as a social gathering place. This can mean eating with two or three different groups of people. Set a time limit of 20 minutes to eat — and then leave.
- Plan alternative behaviors. People who eat when they are stressed or bored need to have substitute activities planned in advance. Stress reduction is better done without food. Talk about the stress with a friend, see a counselor, go for a walk, or do anything else that doesn't involve food. Make a list of things you can do when stress strikes.
- Eat at "home." If the dormitory has a small kitchen, plan to cook some healthful things for yourself. Make a social occasion out of it by inviting friends.
- Take advantage of physical activity programs. Aim to maintain, or even increase, the amount of physical activity you engaged in while in high school. For example, you could play intramural sports, take a ballroom dancing class, join a running club, or learn yoga.
