Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences welcomed Thomas Moore, the ad interim chair of medicine at Boston University’s School of Medicine, Wednesday night to discuss changing eating habits.
Moore gave detailed tips at Sargent auditorium on how students and non-students alike can cut excess fat and calories out of diets by using programs recently established in university dining halls.
“The responsibility to change the way Americans eat lie within society, the family and ourselves,” he said.
Moore said poor eating trends and habits are affecting larger amounts of Americans.
He said 44 million Americans are obese, 65 million American adults have hypertension, 45 million have pre-hypertension and 16 million Americans have diabetes, which are all usually related to poor diets.
“Americans are less active now than they ever were before,” Moore said. “People are using labor-saving devices such as Blackberrys to tell someone something in the room next door instead of getting up and having a face-to-face conversation.”
According to Moore’s presentation, the reasons for obesity and other weight-related problems arise from a decrease in physical activity, genetics and an unprecedented food supply.
“In a grande sized coffee at Starbucks, there is about 4 ounces of light cream,” Moore explained. “If someone has that same coffee on a daily basis for one month, they would be taking in about 7.6 sticks of butter.”
Moore said people can help improve their behaviors by monitoring their food intake, ensuring that they have a low-calorie and low-fat diet, eating breakfast every day and exercising regularly.
Using ideas drawn from various online dieting websites, Moore, along with Sargent, created the program “Sargent Choice.” The program provides a new variety of nutritious meals to certain dining halls around campus, Sargent Dean Gloria Waters said.
“The Sargent Choice program is working with the BU Dining Services providing healthy foods to all students,” she said. “We have programs in Shelton Hall and at West Campus, and we’ll have programs in all dining halls by January.”
Sargent Choice meals include sandwiches, soups, salads, pizza and muffins.
“The director at Shelton Hall said that there was an increase in demand for Sargent Choice pizza,” Programs in Nutrition Director Roberta Durschlag said. “With the switch over to whole-grain bread, fresh basil and other more healthy ingredients, students love it and sales are up.”
Students said Moore’s lecture made them wonder if they should be making their diet healthier.
“After I saw the amount of butter in the cream used in Starbucks coffee, I’m going to start using skim milk,” Sargent senior Jocelyn Van Gorder said.
Some of Moore’s examples left an impression on many students at the presentation, as students said they never realized just how much sugar and calories were in certain foods and drinks.
“The most shocking part for me was when he said how there was seven teaspoons of sugar in a 12-ounce can of soda,” Sargent junior Eva Omuy said.