Dietary needs of students are often met by on-campus resources since they provide accessible services while students go about their studies. Though programs like the UVU food pantry host events such as ‘Fresh Food Fridays’ and garden cooking classes, and the UVU Wellness program offers classes on intuitive eating, the most prominent of Utah Valley University’s dining options are present in the form of fast-food restaurants in the UVU food court, as well as sporadically throughout campus.
Popular restaurants like Chick-fil-A, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, and others are on display. But despite the reputation these restaurants have for providing unhealthy—albeit tasty—food they are not necessarily a net negative in the dietary realm.
In reference to the popular inclusion of these restaurants in student’s diets, resident UVU
dietitian Jeanice Skousen stated, “fast foods can be part of a healthy diet, we need to consider that
students are going to rely on foods and meals that are convenient, easy, low-cost; a lot of times those restaurants—those facilities— provide those options for them.” Skousen proposes that just because a dietary option is cheap and convenient does not mean that it explicitly elicits unhealthy dietary habits.
The crux of the Wellness program’s dietary services rests upon what Skousen and her team refer to as intuitive eating. Intuitive eating relies upon practicing individual eating habits through mindfulness, as opposed to achieving nutrients through restrictive diet mentalities that often rely upon influences outside of the foods themselves.
Skousen warns that beyond things like nutritional value, the food we consume is also influenced by aesthetic factors. In expanding her definition of intuitive eating Skousen stated, “Intuitive eating; it is not a diet, it is more of our approach to food and eating. And the overall goal is to develop that healthy relationship with food by recognizing the influence that external society has on us, and our food.” Skousen touted that things like fad diets, body image, and popular media all play into the way we perceive food and its effects on us.
Yet, despite these unhealthy external factors, Skousen insists that it is not the social image of the food that impacts us, but our personal relationship to our diet which is influenced by that image. She continued, “All these external influences are trying to pressure us on what we should be eating. And intuitive eating is really helping us form that healthy relationship with food by recognizing what our body needs through gentle nutrition, gentle exercise, and really dismissing the external packaging.” Dismissing the social value of food in the name of consumption on a personal level.
Dieting is an essential part of maintaining health, but it is also an essential part of maintaining identity due to the relation foods have with culture. “There are certain foods that are particularly important to our culture and identity,” Skousen said. “Sometimes morality can get tied up in foods. The good versus the bad foods that we are eating. And then with that messaging, that can be a problem because then we tie our value to the foods that we are eating which are not healthy. Because there is no inherent moral value to food, food just is.” It is then up to us to learn to separate the practical value of food from its aesthetic value.
No matter where or what we choose to eat there are going to be repercussions on our body and our identity depending on the reasons we use to justify our eating habits. Intuitive eating then, is not only about mindful eating, but also general self-reflection as we allow our external habits to influence our internal sense of self.
