Eating Habits of Fairfield University Students
      In order to gain a fuller understanding of the eating habits of the Fairfield University community I conducted a survey that asked about the number of meals that students have in a week and where they get their food in which I asked the following questions (1) How many meals do you usually have in a day? (2) Where do you shop for groceries? (3) How many times do you eat out in a typical week? (4) How often do you eat at the dining hall or in the Stag? (5) How many meals do you cook for yourself in a typical week? and (6) How many microwavable meals do you eat in a week?  The main goal in conducting this research was to try to grasp how much processed food is consumed on the Fairfield campus and the level of awareness of the student body on what it means to have a balanced diet.  It was surprising to find that the majority of the Fairfield students polled did not eat microwavable meals and more than half did not take advantage of the on campus dining options provided by Sodexo.  Furthermore, more than half of the participants also only eat restaurant food two times a week or less.  With some exceptions, these three types of meals are the most likely to be processed or to contain processed elements.
      It was also surprising to find that 63% of the students that filled out a survey consumed seven or more home cooked meals over the course of the average week.  Based off of this information alone it is hard to tell exactly how much processed food the average Fairfield student consumes in a given week, however some important conclusions can be drawn regarding the degree of health consciousness on campus.  As a population in general Americans are becoming increasingly aware of what they are putting into their bodies and are tuning in to what goes on behind the scenes of the agroindustries that produce much of the food that we consume.  Although there is no data regarding the degree of health consciousness at the university over the past four years, from my personal experience as a student, the data collected here is undoubtedly more promising than the eating habits I observed when living on campus especially as a freshman in the dorms four years ago. Given the fact that more than 80% of Fairfield students live in university housing, it is significant that so few of them take advantage of the dining facilities.  One participant even went so far as to comment that they âgot rid of my meal plan because of the dining hall food.â
      With so many students deciding against the more processed options available to them there is promise for the future of food options offered at Fairfield University.  If over the past few years alone there has been such a noticeable decrease in the number of students using the dining facilities, then it does not seem unrealistic that in the next four or so that students will be motivated to advocate for more organic options. Nowhere in either the Stag or in the dining hall on campus is there an area designated for organic options, and in spite of claims made on the university website to âcreate meals using the Mindful mix, which mirrors the USDAâs most recent standards for eating a well-balanced meal,â as we learned from studying school lunches from around the world, such guidelines can easily be gerrymandered by the officials that create them. Â
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