Next week might be the time to skip your social drink

Students in general, but especially first year students, do not have the healthiest reputation. “Studeren is combineren”, and therefore, “4 hours of sleep a night is plenty”. Since you never learned how to cook for yourself, you often end up with a pizza from the fridge, and the 200m walk from your house to the supermarket (with a crate of beer in each hand) perfectly counts as sport.

Despite this reputation, it does not turn out to be that bad in practice. A research among 700 university students shows that 40% of the students always considers his or her health when doing grocery shopping and 55% does this regularly. 44% eats vegetables daily, compared to 5% among Dutch adults (this research shows that only 5% eats the recommended amount of vegetables). For fruit, this is 28% (for adults, the average of 10% reaches the recommended amount of fruit). The fast-food pizza is ordered only once a month (76%) and only 21% of the students did not practice a sport at all the past year.

You can interpret these numbers however you want: if 44% eats vegetables daily, that still means that 56% does not. There is always room for improvement! Therefore, Sports&Culture organises the ‘Health Week’ from 17 to 21 October. Participate in multiple health tests, test your  endurance, strenght and flexibility. Famous Dutch chef Pierre Wind will give a free cooking workshop in The Barn. During this cooking workshop he will show you how to make easy and healthy student meals which you could also make at home.

Are you motivated to (im)prove your health? Find more information about the health week here!