Lest one decides to embrace West Chester University’s (WCU) 2026 meal plan policy — the very same one that eliminated the cheapest meal plan, reduced rollovers and limited how many swipes could be used at specific location —, a run-down of its health impacts may still be enough to spur you towards action.
I was a lucky freshman in 2022, treated to the purple-tinted embrace of a campus that was, okay, maybe still a little bogged down by the social awkwardness of a COVID-educated student body, and that, yes, still had pretty cruddy food options compared to the ready-made sandwiches and salads presented at orientation, but that at least offered some fresh fruit for my troubles. I once lived off of bananas and takeout salads for a week just because I could, just because they fit better into my rapid study schedule when I was slammed with exams.
I still live in town, and word travels fast: these new meal plan offerings are pathetic at worst, a clever strategy to so thoroughly degrade student health that everyone is forced to pay for a soon-to-be-monetized campus gym membership at best. At least, that’s my conspiracy theory.
Kidding aside, this so-called development will do harm, particularly to low-income students. Eating habits in low-income households are not only frequently, but typically, unhealthy even after escaping poverty. These habits range from malnourishment to hoarding to binge-eating any food that becomes available. U.S. obesity remains suspended in “epidemic” status, and while the majority of its sufferers are not low-income, this is the group that struggles most to recover.
What do you get when you hand a food-insecure teenager $2,000 worth of meal swipes with a threat of disappearance stapled on top? Panic. That’s what. Students will end up purchasing food they don’t want or need just to make use of their meal swipes. They’ll end up with moldy muffins forgotten in the rented minifridge, nasty pizza slices they secretly hope their roommates will steal, dinner rolls tossed out after biting into a raisin (Shudder. The dining hall’s surprise raisins are a problem of their own caliber). They’ll guiltily throw away food by the pound or force themselves to finish it, causing severe weight fluctuation and nausea, guilt and worry, stockpiling and food waste.
I was a student in the good old days; when I found the 14-swipes-weekly Gold Plan too much, I seamlessly switched to the 10-swipe Purple Plan that following semester. I had rollover swipes aplenty, and I was happy to share. Speaking from experience, though, the Gold Plan era messed with my head in a worrying way despite never experiencing food scarcity in my lifetime. Wasting my family’s hard-earned money just wasn’t right, so I ended up purchasing more food than I could ever want, blowing swipes on individual items instead of full meals, sliding leftover swipes over to friends who’d run out and inflicting WCU’s preservative-filled snacks on my parents whenever I visited (at least they enjoyed it, though they didn’t live off the stuff).
The “freshman 15” is common enough a phenomenon that the Internet is filled with advice on how to avoid it. Now, the real freshman weight gain is usually only four to 10 pounds, but even this varies. The quality of food, preparation availability and even your major may set you up for an unhealthy college experience.
A chemistry-major friend of mine loved to lament how much labs ate into her day. Working with concentrations of chemicals unsafe for human contact meant not only hours of lab work, but two or more hours extra gone to subsequent cleanup. By the time her stomach grew insistent, the dining hall was nearly closed and she’d either have to scarf down all her food at once or grab the quickest ready-made options — think soda, shriveled salads, chips, sugary yogurt — and run. Given this schedule, we can deduce that even with the same meal plan available to every student, not all dietary needs will be met, and not all campus dining experiences are created equal.
In the real world, such problems are circumvented by home cooking, meal prep and fitness. For the majority of WCU’s freshmen, such options simply don't exist. Some may skirt by with a waiver (this usually only works if you supply proof of allergies or if you live close to the university); the rest are stuck with no kitchens to cook in, grocery stores you can only go to by bus at specific times of day and dorm rooms whose lack of space and extreme temperatures turn storing food into a miserable game of Tetris. The student rec center is an excellent health measure when food is ruled out unless you live off campus, don’t drive or don’t have much time on your hands, considering its location at the furthest, most isolated edge of campus.
Should WCU’s administration disregard all the health problems they’re inflicting on their paying student body, though, these price increases and stingy new measures fail to compensate for the many other ways students get ripped off. Food poisoning is no rarity on campus. Dietary-restriction and allergen-free options simply don’t exist, in contrast to other Pennsylvania universities. Online orders are frequently substituted and screwed up — take it from me. I ordered blueberry muffins from EcoGrounds at least once a week, yet to this day I’ve never eaten one. Rather than refunding or informing me that they were out, employees would hand me, in full confidence, anything from cranberry to banana-nut to chocolate-chip muffins. Unless I specifically asked, all beverages besides coffee would be left out of my order.
With the campus-wide Grubhub requirement, one would expect WCU to have a handle over online orders. I may have spoken up in these situations, but a busy student picking up an order, or even just one confident in their own university’s ability to provide for them, may not notice these errors until it’s too late. That also spells danger for those with allergies, who may take a bite they’re unaware will harm them.
Besides that, we pay tens of thousands to attend. The least WCU could do in return is give us the right kind of muffin.
.png)
.png)
