This is a machine transcription and is subject to error. Apologizes in advance. 

Hello my name is Selena Chavarria-Lemus I'm in junior psychology major interning at the health
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and wellness Center this semester. I'm here with Kim Pierce, Stonehill College's dietition
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and we are here to discuss healthy eating habits during the holidays, First could you explain the
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my plate chart and why as has changed from up pyramid to a plate? Sure, first.
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thank you for having me Selena. the my plate is a visual guideline for healthy
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eating. the information is the same as when it used to be a pyramid but the shape is
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changed from a pyramid to a plate because we eat off the plates building
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our plates look like my plate will help us construct healthy meals and get all the nutrients that we need
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and sometimes we have to mentally deconstruct our meals to see how they fit on my plate. basically
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what half of your meal be made up of fruits and veggies about a quarter of your meal to be made up of grains mostly
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whole grains about a quarter of your meal to be made up of lean proteins and the serving of calcium
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rich food . That's awesome so how or what does Stonehill provide for students
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with the restrictions. So eating with a food restriction is definitely challenging even for students who
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have followed their restricted diet for many years. they may have had their food allergy their whole life but
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since this is a new eating environment. I recommend any student who has a dietary restriction meet
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with me. I can help them navigate their dietary restriction in the dining hall. for some students
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this might mean showing them where we keep certain foods to stay way from so like peanut butter
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for other students it might mean showing them where we keep our specialty foods like where we keep our dairy free yogurt
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and our gluten free products for other students it may mean helping them piece together complete meals
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on a vegetarian diet because you know that you could bring a plant -based proteins in the salad bar
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like tofu beans and used in place of meat at any station and for some
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students eating from the regular line is too difficult due to the number of restrictions that they have
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so we work closely with the chef to create separate meals. all students should know
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that a chef is always available during meal time if they ever have a question about ingredients so
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don't be afraid to ask to speak to a chef. Awesome in your
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opinion what are the best ways people can see the ways into ease their way into healthy eating
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so as with any change I think slow is usually the best way to ensure that it becomes habit.
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so you first one identify one small improvement that you can make in your diet. maybe it's trying
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to include more whole grains in your diet or trying to include more fruit in your diet and then
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he wanna figure out a way to make this happen in your life. so it might be something as simple as
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changing from white bread to wheat bread on your sandwich everyday or instead of grabbing
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a bag of chips with your meal maybe grabbing a piece of fruit. this change
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might take just a few days it may take a long time for it to take effect once
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that positive changed has been established you wanna move on to the next habit. if you have difficulties
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identifying the areas of improvement or if you need help carrying out those positive changes
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then you want to seek the advice of the campus dietitian. what are some barriers to healthy
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eating. so I think some of the main barriers that I see in college
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are things like educational barriers economic barriers and busy schedules
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so first off educational barriers. everybody's nutrition background is different.
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some students have learned about healthy eating in school and from their families that maybe they need
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a little help applying this knowledge when you're here on their own in college. other students
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might have never seen the my plate before so it's all new to them and other students met and taught a lot
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about nutrition but that information might not be correct or scientifically sounds.
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so you know do you learn your information from trusted sources or did you learn it on Instagram
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another barrier I see is economic eating on a budget is a new skill for many students
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and it can take some practice eating healthy can fit into a budget but
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you have to make sure you do it with proper planning and that can take some learning the biggest barrier
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I think I see though is busy schedules a lot of student have super busy schedules
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and it makes eating regular meals a challenge. so trying to prioritize when
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and what to fuel the body with can take some creativity. so for the students
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who are constantly on the go. what do you recommend they do so that they can still manage to get enough
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nutrients throughout the day. so I think you should try to keep these four things in mind. um
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number one. try to aim to eat three meals a day. if you don't have time for three main
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meals and try six mini meals. number two is try to picture the my plate when you're at
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breakfast you want to try and get two to three different food groups and at lunch and dinner you wanna try to aim
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for all five different food groups number three planning ahead. when you're sitting
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down tonight maybe to do your homework wanna put a meal plan in place for the next day notice
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when you have classes if you've got a large break of time. maybe you could deem to meet some friends
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for a sit down meal. I think it's important to remember that eating is the social and stress
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relieving activity as well as a chance to fuel yourself. so check out the menus ahead of time
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on the stonehill app and plan what healthy choices you're gonna get at that meal.
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if you're running from class to class kind of plan to stop at the commons ace's place
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to grab a sandwich and maybe eat it during class if you're able. if you notice a
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pattern where your always missing a meal because of your classes. think about the brown bag lunch option. you can
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find these forms at the bakery and the last thing is to try to make your snacks
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count. make them is nutrient dense as possible so instead of just having crackers
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as a snack try to have crackers with cheese sticks and instead of just having a bag of pretzels tried
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to have some hummus with those pretzels. yogurt parfeits are great choices smoothies
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trail mix granola bars. so with the holidays coming up. what are some
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tips you have for students on how to eat better during these times. I first suggest trying
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to plan ahead. so aim to keep your eating schedule as normal
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as possible. if you know that you're gonna be going to a holiday party late at night. where
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there's gonna be a lot of less than healthy food served you might be tempted first to skip
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all of the other meals during the day to allow yourself time to over indulge but
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this isn't a great idea because it's gonna make you hangry you can find it more difficult to choose healthy
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choices once you're at the party. so instead try to include healthy well time
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to meals for both breakfast and lunch on those kinds of days an tie self over in the evening
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with healthy snack of some veggies and hummus or fruit and yogurt and then do
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the best you can to make that meal that you're not in control of as healthy as possible.
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my next suggestion would be to try to be active. so try to continue with your regular exercise
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as much as possible. it's gonna definitely help with stress management and it will help
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with your less than perfect holiday diet. you wanna try to take advantage of opportunistic exercises.
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so go out and rake the leaves instead of using a leaf blower park far away
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from the mall use the stairs instead of the escalator and elevator to maximize your steps
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and then finally you want to be realistic. on average you wanna try to make about eighty percent
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of what you eat every day pretty healthy which allows about twenty per twenty percent for some fun
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foods and sometimes we have to ship this a little bit during the holidays or maybe more seventy thirty.
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we also need to remember that it's a week long average so we have one meal that we know is a lot
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less healthy than we normally should have had try to balance is off with a lot of other healthy meals throughout the week.
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what are some food student should make sure they include with each meal during
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the holidays. so you want to try to visualize my plate and ask yourself what groups you personally
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tend to short change yourself on during the holidays for a lot of students it's fruits and veggies
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and so you wanna make sure that you're getting enough foods from these groups the easier you can make
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it to eat these foods the better so try to have them already cut up and readily available in your refrigerator.
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what foods she students try to stay away from or limit during the holidays
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so I don't recommend avoiding any foods in particular unless you have food allergies or
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dietary restrictions we tend to want what we can't have so as soon as we make food
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rules they tend to backfire. moderation really is the key maybe
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more challenging during the holidays because of your different schedules and the because the events tend to be
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more food centric but we can she'll still try to aim for the eighty twenty rule. the
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content of that twenty percent for fun foods might be a little different during the holidays things like cookies
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and pumpkin pie. might have to focus a little bit harder at making sure that we include the healthy the eighty
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percent. okay. thank you so much for all the advice for holiday
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eating habits. we really appreciate you talking to me so thank you and I hope
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you have a great break! Thank you!
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This is a machine transcription and is subject to error. Apologizes in advance.