Alexandra Catalano - From Beer Bongs to Broccoli: The College Kids Guide to Health and Wellness

FROM BEER BONGS TO BROCCOLI

ALEXANDRA CATALANO

Copyright 2013 Alexandra Catalano

All rights reserved.

ISBN 13: 9781625171894

If you have health, you probably will be happy, and if you have health and happiness, you have all the wealth you need.

Elbert Hubbard

This book is dedicated to my feisty Italian parents, Frank and Brenda. You may have made me short, but you also made me creative. Ti amo.

So here you are. The day you thought would never comeyour first day of college. After all those AP classes, SAT Prep courses, and extracurricular crap, you can finally get what youve been waiting for: freedom! Youre finally free of your parents, and you can do whatever you want. You can party all night, dress like a Spice Girl, sleep in class, never clean your room and eat pizza for breakfast. While this experience can be wonderfully liberating, it can also be disastrous for your health if not handled in moderation. We only get one body, and if you dont treat it with the love and care it needs, it can affect the way you look and feel forever.

College is one of the most thrilling times of your life, so why not look and feel your best? Its the one opportunity where you can experience a multitude of new things in a safe and supportive environment. Where else would strangers enthusiastically chant your name while you shotgun a beer? While college provides the perfect setting to discover yourself, many students find themselves experiencing excessive weight gain, low energy, poor skin, frequent illness, depression, and insomnia. Shocking studies conducted by Cornell University found that on average, college freshman gain about 0.5 pounds a week. This is almost 11 times more than the average weight gain among seventeen- and eighteen-year olds and almost 20 times more than the average weight gain among American adults! So we must ask, Why are college students gaining tremendous amounts of weight so quickly, and how can this be avoided?

It wasnt long ago that I, too, packed up my room and made my way to college. Finally I had the chance to try new things without the watchful eye of my Italian parents. I didnt know a single person and was excited, yet anxious to begin my new life. College was everything I had hoped it would be and more. However, there was one thing I couldnt help but noticemy expanding waistline. After meeting up with old high school friends during winter break, I realized I wasnt the only one. Apparently there was a name for it: the Freshman 15.

Many of my college friends had put on an exorbitant amount of weight, had poor skin and were so exhausted that they spent most of their day sleeping. When I went home and returned to my original diet, I watched my waistline shrink to its pre-college state, I had more energy, and my skin cleared up. So what was I doing differently? When I returned to college, I began to study my friends, as well as my own personal habits. The first thing I noticed was the food we ate. At home, my Italian mother always prepared fresh, unprocessed, seasonal foods as well as some good old -fashioned Italian Catholic guilt. I ate an abundance of fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grainswhereas at college, I feasted on frozen pizza, sugary cereals, macaroni and cheese, and drank as much beer as I could stomach before tossing my cookies. I also noticed nobody ever drank water. Glancing around a giant lecture hall, I saw a sea of sodas, coffees, and on occasion, a suspicious flask perhaps containing herbal tea (also known as vodka.) What I rarely saw was students hydrating themselves.

Eating habits were not the only thing that led to my poor health in college. Insufficient sleep, which is often part of the college experience, had a major impact on my overall health and academic performance. In college I was a night owl. I was either up late going to parties, listening to my roommate fight with her long distance boyfriend in Chinese, or glued to my computer writing a paper that was due in two hours. I had pale skin, dark circles under my eyes and was always passing out in class. While living like a vampire was somewhat thrilling, I think we can all agree The Twilight thing is on its way out. I had to change and start getting a normal sleep cycle. While Ill admit Ive taken the best naps Ive ever had during my English 101 class, I realized that my $1,000 dollars a unit class was turning out to be an expensive nap.

Lastly, I found that myself and other students werent treating the environment with care. Almost every week, my friends and I would throw big parties with unrecyclable red plastic cups, unaware of how many landfills we were contributing to or even considering the colossal waste the university created in general. Think about all the papers, supplies, and books that go unrecycled every semester! The average college student produces an estimated 640 pounds of solid waste each year, including 500 disposable cups and 320 pounds of paper. According to my mathematical calculations thats a shit ton! Each year the numbers continue to grow. So what did I learn in my four years of college?

College is a time of excess. You are constantly pushing the limits to bend all the rules and restrictions that have been instilled in you since your youth. However, four years of constant partying, late night snacks, binge eating, and lack of sleep can do long term damage to your body. Its amazing how much older some students look after their first year of college. Theyre heavier with wrinkles under their eyes, and lack the energy and zest they once had as bright -eyed freshmen. More importantly, many students carry these poor eating habits into their adult lives and never even consider making a change until it is too late.

After graduating college, you may find yourself in a corporate work environment, where youll be sedentary at a desk. Either out of boredom or fatigue you might turn to coffee and vendor snacks as a means of nourishment throughout the day. By establishing a balanced diet in your youth, you can continue this healthy life style in the next phase of your life. If you never ate processed foods and drank in excess in college, you would never think of doing that as an adult. Instead of ordering a Double Whopper for lunch you would be packing fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins. Then, when you finally get that two-week paid vacation youve been waiting for, youll look great and have the energy to dance with a hot foreigner with abs like Jesus who speaks broken English or a sassy lady with big jugs! Ole!

As I journeyed from being a college student to a graduate, I found students to be intelligent, compassionate, and talented individuals who possessed tremendous potential to change the world. However, students are not aware of these things because these issues are rarely addressed in college. If students were taught the proper way to love and respect their bodies, they might also begin to show love and respect toward others as well as the environment. I found that when I changed the way I ate, my life started to change as well. My mind became more focused and open to new things, my skin cleared up, I shed extra pounds, I was more productive, and most importantly, I felt more of a connection with others than I ever had in my entire life.

After graduation, I continued my education at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition studying one hundred dietary theories from top experts in the field of health and wellness including Dr. Andrew Weil, David Wolfe, Dr. David Katz, Geneen Roth, Dr. John Douillard, and Dr. Mark Hyman. My goal is to provide the necessary knowledge so that college students are equipped with the tools to be the best they can be.