Because Dartmouth requires all freshmen to have the SmartChoice20 as their dining plan in the fall, many of my friends have come up with creative ways to spend their extra meal swipes. Two girls on my floor regularly go to the Hop to cash in on their late-night allowance of $5.25. The duo stocks up on so many snacks that they have a box filled with potato chips and gummy worms that they then share with the entire floor. Usually around midnight, they make their rounds, tempting each student to take a snack break from an otherwise long night of studying.
Although I am very grateful for these candy patrols, I have recently wondered how my friends are able to feed themselves while also somehow feeding the entire floor. Of the 20 meal swipes that are allotted to them every week, they dedicate around four to five to feed "the box." This leaves, at most, 16 meal swipes for the rest of the week. Excuse me for all the numbers I'm throwing at you, but that's five days in which they are eating only two meals. When I questioned one of the girls on how she manages to survive on only two full meals a day, she shrugged, saying that because she has no morning classes, she hardly ever uses her breakfast swipe.
I have come to realize that many students on campus, especially freshmen, can relate to her situation. The fact that students can only use one meal swipe during each meal period means that they are boxed in by how many meals they can have each day. If a student misses the opportunity to use her breakfast meal swipe, she must eat in the early lunch period and wait until the dinner period to have lunch. At the Class of 1953 Commons, this means she will have to wait until 5 p.m. My two floormates have made do with Dartmouth's meal system, even coming up with a clever (and generous) method of not letting their extra swipes go to waste. Others, however, find themselves eating extra in anticipation of the long wait for dinner. One friend noted, "I've found myself eating more than I usually do because with only three meal swipes a day, I need to eat more so that it'll last me the entire day."
Personally, I can relate to him. Before I came to Dartmouth, I was used to eating four meals a day. Now, with only $2.14 left on my DBA, I cannot afford to eat extra meals on a daily basis. Like many of my peers, I'm starting to eat larger meals less frequently. However, this "three squares a day" approach, according to nutrition experts and doctors, is much less healthy than the consumption of small, more frequent meals. Kathleen Zelman, a nutritionist, advocates that eating small meals "helps regulate blood sugar [and] control cravings...while keeping you energized." Eating small meals has even been examined as an approach to curbing obesity. A new Finnish study involving more than 4,000 participants from whom data was collected prenatally until the age of 16 reveals that eating five meals per day contributes to a reduced risk of becoming overweight in both sexes, as well as a reduced risk of abdominal obesity in males.
Based on these data, I wonder whether SmartChoice20 is in any way a "smart" option for the freshman class. Not only does it restrict students to eating three meals a day, it forces them into an inflexible meal schedule that often conflicts with classes and individual eating preferences. Healthy eating encompasses more than just the nutritional aspect of food; the way in which food is consumed is also very important, and Dartmouth fails to acknowledge this reality. Instead of foisting the SmartChoice20 plan on the entire freshman class, the Dartmouth administration should educate students about the advantages (and drawbacks) of each meal plan and then let students make their own decisions. Free from worries about wasted meal swipes, freshmen could then focus on more important matters, like buying tickets to the Reggie Watts performance and figuring out how to get flair without leaving town.
