Students interested in learning more about diets and nutrition listened to a presentation by Brittany Vernier, a registered dietician and nutritionist at Student Health and Wellness (SHaW), on how college students can eat healthier.
On Wednesday, inside a Monteith classroom, Vernier talked about the importance of carbohydrates, tips on eating healthy, the benefits of good nutrition and more.
During the presentation, Vernier shared multiple reasons on how good nutrition can benefit your health, including improvements to sleep, mood, energy levels and focus.
Firstly, Vernier emphasized the difference between a dietician and a nutritionist.
“All registered dieticians are nutritionists, but not all nutritionists are registered dieticians,” said Vernier. Because there are more stringent requirements to being a dietician than a nutritionist, dieticians are considered more reputable sources to ask for nutrition advice, she said.
Vernier also advertised SHaW’s nutrition services. Students can book an appointment with one of three registered dieticians who can provide counselling on what to eat if you’re looking to increase your physical activity, try out a new diet, manage an eating disorder and more.
Students can book an appointment through the student health portal and can learn more about SHaW’s nutritional services at studenthealth.uconn.edu/nutrition/.
Next, Vernier talked about how fad diets aren’t helpful towards nutrition or bodyweight goals, since they aren’t realistic long-term plans and may also cause eating disorders. There is also scientific evidence which claims people gain more weight after they finish the diet than lose during the diet.
If a diet promotes weight loss without exercise, cuts out entire food groups or promises that it can help you lose weight in an unrealistic timeframe, those are the hallmarks of a fad diet, according to Vernier.
One example of a fad diet is a carnivore diet, which focuses on animal products. Vernier calls this diet unhelpful because it doesn’t provide enough glucose or fiber, and it could cause heart problems due to the excessive amounts of saturated fat.
According to Vernier, an example of a good diet might be a Mediterranean diet — which focuses on fruits, vegetables, fish and lean meats — because it provides a good mix of nutrients in healthy portion sizes.
The presentation also went over all the kinds of decisions we make based on food. Humans make over 200 decisions a day regarding food, consciously and unconsciously, according to Vernier.
Those 200 decisions can range from biological reasons, such as eating to meet our nutritional requirements, to psychological reasons, such as eating “comfort” food as a pick-me-up meal. Other motivations to eat include socialreasons — maybe one wants to eat with company— and environmental reasons, like eating at the closest dining hall out of convenience.
Next, Vernier discussed the different nutrients people should eat.
There are three macronutrients that humans need to eat a lot of: carbohydrates, proteins and fats. There are also micronutrients— mostly vitamins and minerals — but they are recommended in trace amounts compared to the daily required intake of the three macronutrients.
According to Vernier, one’s daily intake should be composed of 45-60% carbohydrates, 10-35% proteins and 20-35% fatty foods.
When digested, carbohydrates are broken down into different kinds of sugars, which are used as the main energy source for the body. There are two kinds of carbohydrates — simple ones that can break down quicker, like white rice, soda and dairy products, and complex ones which break down slower, like fruits, vegetables and brown rice.
Proteins break down into 20 different types of amino acids, which are the building blocks for your body as they can build muscle, maintain healthy skin, boost your immune system and more. Protein can also act as a source of energy if needed. Humans need to eat animal protein, such as beef, poultry and eggs, to get essential amino acids, which cannot be made by the body.
Fatty foods help you feel full, give texture to what you’re eating and can aid in the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins. They are a good source of omega acids, which Vernier calls “brain food,” and isn’t produced in large quantities by the body, thus requiring some intake through food.
There are three types of fat: plant-based unsaturated fat, animal-based saturated fat and trans-fat. Vernier advised the audience to avoid eating trans-fat whenever possible, which is commonly found in fried food.
At the conclusion of her presentation. Vernier presented some main takeaways for the audience. She recommended that you should “eat the rainbow” when having a meal, and take whole grains, dairy and lean meats if possible. She also stressed that one should take a meal or snack every three to four hours and incorporate multiple food groups when doing so.
Trace Henderson, a sixth-semester pharmacy student, was involved with setting up the event as a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, which hosted this event. He reached out to Vernier about a presentation on nutrition becausehe’s “big into nutrition, I think that’s a big part that a lot of people kind of ignore,” he said.
Henderson left the event more knowledgeable about the different types of carbohydrates, because he wants to figure out what to eat if he doesn’t want to spike his glucose levels, which could have detrimental health effects later in life, he said.
“You don’t want your glucose spiking all the time,” Henderson said. “I’ve been wanting to learn about which carbohydrates are just a slow increase. Between, you know, brown rice and wheat bread, it motivates me to go eat stuff like that instead.”
In the future, Henderson said he will try his best to incorporate the lessons he learned in this presentation into his diet.
“If I’m going to Subway and I need a sandwich, maybe I’ll get wheat bread instead of white bread,” Henderson said. “I can’t say I’ll commit to a huge change in diet immediately, but it makes it easier to find those little things to where maybe I’m getting healthier with each little decision.”