College Jolt

Your college years are best spent busy. So where does that leave room for keeping up with your personal fitness? It’s hard work staying healthy with all of the unlimited junk food, parties, and lazy weekends that the college experience provides. That’s why in my series, Shape U, we’re gearing up for a semester of fitness 101, featuring tips and tricks to maintaining your shape this season.

College students are notorious for their taste in food—whether they follow the heat-and-eat noodle fad, or simply choose strange combinations at the campus cafeteria (“That’s right, Mom. Today I had a hot dog, a waffle, and eggplant Parmesan!”). It’s no wonder, then, that more than a few of us disregarded Mom’s plea for us to eat our veggies every meal, and instead opted for the quick and easy choices that get us through our busy days.

But did you know that you can still eat right on a never-ending schedule? It takes a quick lesson in “the facts” to get started, but by the end of today’s crash course in nutrition labels, one quick glance can determine which meal will do your mother proud, and which should be avoided all-together.

Tip #1: Check the serving size. If you’ve ever prepared, say, a box of pasta, you may have noticed that the Nutrition Facts give the approximate number of servings per box. A serving is simply the unit used to portion meals, but doesn’t necessarily indicate that a single serving is the maximum amount that should be eaten by one person. It all depends on context.

If you were preparing the box of pasta as a side dish for you and three friends, the recommended serving size might be a reasonable portion for each of you to consume. On the other hand, if you prepare the pasta for yourself only, and intend to eat it as your main dish, it is certainly permissible to have more than one serving yourself. The stuff that should concern you is what’s listed under the serving size, so only reference the serving size when trying to determine which percentage of the food’s contents you will consume.

Tip #2: Keep in mind that the “% Daily Value” listed beside each fact is the percentage of your daily limit that each particular nutrient fulfills. For example, a can of soup with a “3%” next to the Total Carbohydrate count provides 3% of your daily allowance of carbs. Now, this suggested daily limit, as I’ve mentioned in the past, is just an estimate that may not, and probably will not, apply to every person. Therefore, use the percentages only to visualize a pie-chart of sorts, which will give you an idea of how liberally or conservatively you should be consuming each component per day.

Tip #3: Now comes the biggie: calories. This is the number everyone is always talking about. And even though calories are essentially the units by which we measure our bodies’ energy, it seems like everybody always wants less of them. Why? With cheap and easy access to food 24/7, it’s easy for us to consume more than we need in one sitting. But the problem of overeating is only half of the reason calories have a bad reputation.

Calories are also tied to fat—not only because there is a “calories from fat” measurement on nutrition labels, but also because high-calorie foods, like tasty desserts, tend to have a lot of fat. But calories aren’t always bad for you. It is recommended, in fact, that only 30% of one’s daily caloric intake consist of fatty calories. These calories aren’t as good for you as others, and don’t maximize their potential once consumed.

So what does “calories from fat” mean? If you think of calories as the stuff that sustains us—the fuel for your engine, if you will—then you can phrase your calorie quandary this way: “How much of the energy from this food is from fat?” Thus, leaving us with other questions, such as, “How much of the energy is from carbohydrates, and how much will I get from proteins?”

With that, we end at Tip #4, and a real life example to get the ball rolling before next session.

Fats. Sounds scary. But don’t be overwhelmed by the appearance of the word more than a few times on the back of the box. Refer to the anonymous food label to the right to see fat facts in action.

Total fat is just as it sounds. In one serving of our anonymous food, there are 11 grams of it, which we can see is roughly 20% of what should be consumed daily (based on a 2000-calories diet. See above.) But underneath you also see Saturated fat, 2 grams. These fats should be consumed sparingly; you can tell from the label that the daily limit is only 20 grams per day. One of the biggest saturated fat culprits is butter, but it’s also found in other foods that certainly have redeeming qualities, like meats and milk. Saturated fats make foods delicious, but keep them at a minimum to give your body the energy it really deserves.

The other fats, Trans fats, are also of the bad variety, but believe it or not, don’t show up on many food labels these days. Trans fat may occur because your food has undergone hydrogenation, which helps to form these fats and increase shelf life. They aren’t present on many labels because they occur in small quantities, but beware: Trans fat quantities under 0.5 grams are not required by the FDA to be listed at all, which means boxes boasting “0 grams of trans fat!” may actually contain minimal amounts. Though seemingly invisible, they still need to be eaten as little as possible, so be cautious of foods that aren’t fresh from the ground. Grainy foods like cookies, crackers, and cereal that need to survive weeks in the grocery store often contain small amounts of trans fat that add up over time.

Thankfully, our mystery food has zero grams of trans fat ( or so they say…)! But what about the other components we’ve talked about today? Does this anonymous food label look like it belongs to something a smart school-goer would choose? And what can you decipher about the food label’s component that we’ve yet to discuss? Find out what it all means next time in part two of this Shape U crash course.

Photos courtesy of Google Images.