From Chipotle or Panera Bread on Brown Street to the three main dining facilities on campus, University of Dayton students have a variety of options available when it comes to chowing down.
UD offers free dietician services to all students, faculty and staff to help promote nutrition education, wherever a student decides to eat. Dietician Wylan Ganote said she has helped a variety of people improve their eating habits with personalized nutrition goals and plans.
“Staff, faculty, brothers, even the president at one point,” she said. “My services aren’t really limited to anybody around UD.”
Dining Services offers a brochure, “Healthy Eating on Brown Street,” students can use to make healthy choices when dining off campus. While some food options are healthier than others, Ganote said it does not matter where a student chooses to eat. Instead, she said, it is crucial for students to make informed choices about healthy options at
any eatery.
“It’s all the same, I can make wise choices no matter where I eat,” Ganote said. “I eat everywhere, not just Brown Street and UD, but I’ll eat at Rue Dumaine and the Winds and all kinds of places, but at the end of the day I have a pattern I follow and that’s the end of it, because I know what I’m doing.”
The definition of healthy eating varies for each person. Ganote said factors such as a person’s sex, age and activity level have an impact on how many calories should
be consumed.
“So much depends on the activity thing,” she said. “If you are living in Stuart, you can eat a different way than if you lived right next door to Panera and ate there all the time.”
UD students often come to campus without an understanding
of the thought that goes into
healthy eating.
“The issue is most students don’t have a pattern, they don’t know what they’re doing and frankly some of them don’t care,” Ganote said. “They are pretty well certain they are indestructible and going to live forever but the problem is that it’s not true.”
When it comes to healthy eating habits, Ganote said many students begin to eat differently their junior or senior years than they did as
a freshman.
“Wisdom starts to set in and they make different choices,” she said.
Much of the food served at UD comes from Gordon Food Service, yet each dining hall has its own unique nutritional information due to varying recipes and ingredients. General nutrition information for the facilities on campus is available on Porches on the UD Daily tab under Menu.
“The difference [in nutrition] is based on portion size and ingredients and while most nutrition info is available from restaurants’ websites, UD is not exact because it is recipe based,” Ganote said.
Senior biology major, Kourtney Mcnoulty said that she should put more thought into what she eats but that a tight budget and schedule makes it difficult. She typically prefers to eat at her house in the student neighborhood instead of Brown Street or on campus.
“My house is cheaper, UD is way more convenient and Brown Street is a treat,” she said.
Mcnoulty said most meals are eaten at her house, with UD being used to buy snacks between classes and Brown Street restaurants for special times out with friends.
To learn more about nutrition, visit www.dietitian.com or to use UD’s dietitian services, contact Ganote at Wylan.Ganote@udayton.edu with “UD consult” as the message subject.
