Summary
: This blog post provides university students with practical tips on improving eating habits, highlighting the impact of nutrition on mood, concentration, and mental clarity. It covers the importance of meal planning, staying hydrated, and making balanced food choices to support overall well-being and academic performance.
Eating can be the most important part of a person’s day, whether that is planning meals for the rest of the week on a university budget or figuring out what to have for breakfast when you’re running late for a lecture. Personal experience dictates eating can often be overlooked in favour of getting somewhere faster or wishing to finish a project first, sometimes that last thing on our mind is food, and we really just forget.
But food isn’t just something we’re eating to go through the motions, it’s not just a necessity to sustain life, but affects the way we live it too.
Why your eating habits matter
Skipping meals and poor diet choices can lead to low blood sugar, causing mood swings and irritability.
When you don’t get the right nutrients—like iron, zinc, vitamins, and iodine—it affects brain function and concentration, impacting both children and adults.
An unbalanced diet isn’t just about not eating enough; it can also mean not getting the right nutrients or over-consuming one food group, like pasta and rice. For example, eating pasta four days a week might lack the variety your body needs.
Studies show that a balanced diet improves mental clarity, perception, and reasoning. It also boosts energy and supports a more positive mindset, helping you stay focused.
Top Tips to Improve Your Eating Habits
- Set a routine. Set times of the day when you eat, this way you’re less likely to skip meals
- Stay hydrated. Always have a drink on you, even if it’s just water.
- Try not to skip breakfast. Whilst it’s not a good idea to skip any meal, skipping breakfast is likely to have a larger impact on the ability to concentrate because it’s the first meal of the day. Bonus tips from UoR researchers: eating walnuts for breakfast may improve your cognitive functions.
- Plan your meals. Create a meal plan or a menu to help stick to your routine. Something that works around your schedule so you can figure out budgeting and time – which meals need to be quick and simple, and which meals can you indulge a little more.
- Go frozen. Frozen vegetables are a great budget-friendly option if you can’t always buy fresh.
- Cook in bulk and freeze leftovers.
- Mix it up. Always make sure you have some variety of fruit and vegetables.
- Cut down on saturated fat and sugar in foods when necessary: This can be done by reading the nutrition labels and adhering to recommended portion sizes.
- Exercise. Find ways to keep yourself moving, whether this is going for a walk to buy groceries instead of taking the car or cycling around reading. For more inspo read our blog Outdoor exercises you can do this spring.
Eating properly is important to maintaining a healthy mindset and focus that supports your learning, no matter if you’re young or old. Below are some sites with budget-friendly recipes.
- BBC – Easy Recipes for Students
- Jamie Oliver – Easy Student Recipes
- The Real Meal Deal – 50 Cheap Meals and Recipes for Students
You can find more tips for improving your eating habits on the NHS website.