Students promote fruit and vegetable meals via social media
The Student Health and Counseling Services (SHCS) hosted the “Step Up to the Plate” campaign on campus from Jan. 23-27 in order to encourage students to fill half of their plates with fruits and vegetables. The campaign, which was run by the Health Education and Promotion department within the SHCS, included outreach events such as tabling at the Student Community Center and the Activities and Recreation Center to give out free bananas and oranges to students.
Based on the latest American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment, a research survey about college student wellness, less than 6 percent of undergrads and 10 percent of graduate students consume five or more servings of fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. The campaign’s goal was to increase that percentage and to educate students about the health benefits of consuming more fruits and vegetables daily.
The campaign slogan was “Step Up to the Plate. Make 1/2 Your Plate Fruits and Veggies.” The hashtag #aggieplate was used throughout the campaign to prompt students to post photos of their plates filled halfway with fruits and vegetables. A winner was drawn and awarded a $10 ASUCD CoHo gift card. Daisy Valdez, a health education and promotion wellness student assistant who worked on the campaign, believes that students learned an important message from the campaign.
“I believe students gained a reminder of the importance of eating more fruits and vegetables as well as learned about easy ways to increase their consumption of fruits and veggies” Valdez said. “Making half your plate fruits and veggies is such a simple way to increase the amount you are eating, so we received positive feedback from students about using it as a tool. One of the highlights of this campaign was the fresh fruit giveaways. Students were pleasantly surprised to receive free fruit.”
Stephanie Goley, a fourth-year science and technology major, likes eating fruit and is happy it is offered on campus.
“I particularly like berries,” Goley said. “Specifically blueberries and raspberries because they are rich in antioxidants.”
Yosenia Ruiz, a first-year biology major, likes how many healthy promotions and options UC Davis offers and is happy knowing there was a campaign encouraging students to eat healthier.
“It can be really easy to just choose the cheap, fast and fattening food option, especially in college when you are on a tight budget,” Ruiz said. “I have the dining commons where I still get a lot of food options but once I move out I need to find resources like this one that can provide for me healthy options.”
This is the second time the SCHS has hosted the fruit and vegetable campaign, and it plans on hosting it again during the 2017-2018 school year.
Written by: Demi Caceres — campus@theaggie.org
