Last fall, Lincoln University made headlines when its administrators instituted a class called “Fitness for Life,”which covered everything from nutrition and exercise to sleep and stress management. The course was to provide basic health education and equip Lincoln’s students with the tools they needed to implement a healthy lifestyle in college and beyond. Making such a class available is certainly commendable. Making such a class mandatory for students with a body mass index over 30 raised questions and a few eyebrows.

The fact that such a story made national headlines is a good sign because it shows that the question of how to deal with our growing obesity epidemic and generally deteriorating health features prominently in the consciousness of many Americans. But what role, if any, should colleges play in educating students about health and longevity?

Last year, colleges and universities spent some $4 billion providing food to students. Imagine what that kind of purchasing power could be used for if colleges began to see their duty to educate students as extending past textbooks and classrooms and into basic skill sets, like how to eat and exercise for longevity. It’s no secret that optimal mental functioning is grounded in receiving all the essential nutrients, and adequate exercise is needed to ensure proper blood flow and muscle function. So why, then, have colleges not added nutrition and exercise classes to the core curriculum?

College students are uniquely suited to adapt and adopt new healthy lifestyle habits. They are open to both change and challenge as they adjust to life on campus. Moreover, their learning takes place both inside and outside the classroom, from teachers, fellow students, the Internet and personal experience. This is a prime environment in which to engage students to consider the habits they form today as investment in their future health. More importantly, if colleges and students begin to demand access to healthful foods by placing emphasis on quality and variety, rather than solely on quantity and convenience, they might be able to send a shockwave through our food system that would result in a much healthier balance for everyone.

If you are in college, or know someone who is, you can start by getting your college or university administration to spend their cafeteria money wisely. Combining purchasing power with their educational mission and community impact, campuses could serve as a hotbed of innovation and a leader in the move towards a healthier America. So many important social changes—women’s suffrage, civil rights, peace movements—were catalyzed by a few, passionate young people. If we use our voices correctly, we can help create a food supply of healthy, high-quality, nutrient-dense food that is affordable for everyone.

As proof that major food suppliers will respond to consumer demand, look to the cases of PepsiCo and Kraft Foods. Both companies announced they would be replacing high fructose corn syrup in their respective products of Gatorade and Wheat Thins with sugar. Though it costs more money to use sugar, the switch was made in response to consumer preference. And the removal of trans fats from many restaurant menus and processed food items was due solely to public outcry about the possible health hazards of this ingredient.

As a consumer group, our role must be to continue to show large-scale producers that investing in affordable, widely accessible health food options will be profitable. As we provide the demand, producers will follow through with a supply that meets our needs. Colleges, in particular, have an important role because they provide a succinct, focused support sector that can provide a model which the rest of our society can emulate.

Here are four ways every college and university could improve the experience, education, and health of its students:

Farm-to-School: College campuses should focus on seasonality, prioritizing those foods that can be sourced locally or from organic/fair-trade institutions. Limiting purchases of industrially produced and non-local food items decreases cost (because it cuts out shipping and preserving aids), decreases students’ exposure to harmful pesticides and fertilizers, and, especially in the case of locally-produced food, offers fresher, nutrient-dense options. An excellent way to cut costs and improve both student health and local economy is to implement Farm-to-School partnerships, where local producers provide produce and fresh goods, giving students a chance to eat a healthy variety of foods indigenous to their locale.

Sustainability: Part of creating a more healthful society entails making sure we are meeting our needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs. Colleges should implement campus-wide recycling and composting systems to generate awareness of the waste created and to contribute as little as possible to the waste stream.

Academic Engagement: As they work to encourage students to prioritize healthy living, colleges must offer more academic opportunities for students to observe the relationship between food, health, environment and the global economy. Then students can come to understand intellectually the role they play in creating a sustainable society as conscious consumers and perhaps as the next generation of sustainable suppliers.

Physical Engagement: Crucial to the learning process is for students to feel a sense of ownership over the material and their health. The best way I know for this to take place is to make hands-on learning opportunities available to engage students in the growing process from seed to plate. This could include anything from creating on-campus gardens (such as the ambitious Cornell Sustainable Campus initiative) to work-study opportunities on local farms.

Ultimately, the hope is that students will graduate with a sense of stewardship over the land so that they continue to be conscious consumers after graduation. If colleges seize the ripe opportunity presented to them, they can have a significant impact not only in growing the ranks of a healthier generation, but also in selecting and grooming the leaders of tomorrow’s food marketplace.

When I was growing up, I was very fortunate to be surrounded by health advocates: my dad is a cardiac surgeon; my mother is a reiki master and aficionado of holistic and homeopathic medicine. As such, I was uniquely exposed to the nexus of Eastern and Western medicine, and our dinner table chats covered everything from the latest advancement in robotic surgery to the newest research in Co-Q10 therapies. And yet, I was a good 25-40 pounds overweight for most of my youth.

A clear example of knowledge without practice, I struggled to put all my parents’ valuable information to use because their tips on nutrition and exercise simply didn’t fit into my lifestyle. I was a high school student who had difficulty finding healthy foods on campus, and I had even more difficulty exercising moderation when I came home to a stunning array of healthful foods in delicious preparations (my mother is an enviable cook and managed to make even the blandest, ‘90s-era tofu taste divine).

It wasn’t for lack of interest or effort on my part either, either. I really enjoyed learning all I could about nutrition and alternative remedies, and I played three sports throughout high school. Compared to my friends, I thought I did a good job choosing mostly healthy foods. But the scale is indifferent to calorie source; it cares only about whether you use more than you consume, and I did not.

The problem was that the more I obsessed over how heavy I was, the heavier I became. By age 17, I had reached 175 pounds. On my 5’8” frame, this verged on obesity. From a medical standpoint, my dad knew how dangerous carrying so much extra weight could be, especially with the strain I put on my heart and joints by playing active sports. Both of my parents urged me to find a way to really live healthfully, and I attempted all manner of fad diets—no fat, lots of carbs; no carbs, lots of protein; no protein, lots of veggies—and none of them did any good. These diets are constructed with middle-aged women in mind, people with full kitchens and time to cook, not teenagers looking to lose weight. Even more problematic were the unforgiving eating guidelines, which sent even the most diligent dieters running for a box of “Ho-Ho’s” before too long. Inevitably, we find ourselves gaining back any weight that was lost, and then some.

In the end, I realized that deprivation was neither a good approach for myself nor, truthfully, anyone actually trying to lose weight (sadists are another issue altogether). It especially was not going to work for someone preparing to leave for college and looking to regain health while losing weight. I knew that starting college would mark the onset of my adult life, and I wanted to allow myself to live it to the fullest. I had already experienced so many setbacks due to being overweight: I had felt unnecessarily self-conscious for years, I had kept myself from trying new things, I had made the varsity sport teams only to be benched for the season because I didn’t have the endurance to play. I wanted to experience college, and the adult life that ensued, as my optimal self. Only once I had this inspiration and motivation could I pair it with the information I’d had since birth and effect the transformation I wanted to see.

I made the commitment to adopt a realistic, healthy lifestyle. This meant finding ways to take food off center stage—it wasn’t going to be the focal point of my life anymore, and fad diets were ruled out. Instead, I concerned myself with experiencing all that college had to offer. I aimed to “live consciously,” meaning I would avoid mindless grazing, and I also refused to feel deprived. With this new commitment to permanent lifestyle change, I lost ten pounds over the remaining six months of my senior year in high school. I lost another ten pounds during my first semester in college simply by remembering to be aware of what I put into my body.

So began the journey that would eventually lead me to publish “The Dorm Room Diet,” a manual I wrote during my freshman year at college wherein I documented all the tips and tricks I developed to establish healthy habits while living away from home, without ever feeling like I was missing out on anything.

The most important motto I continue to live by is this: “Substitution where you can, moderation where you can’t.” This means that if you are happy having an apple instead of a brownie, that’s a great way to cut back on processed sugars and simple carbohydrates on a regular basis. But if you’re at a friend’s birthday party, go ahead and celebrate with a piece of cake, or half a piece, or even a bite. Don’t deny yourself a crucial element of an experience that food provides. It is necessary to feel in control, and when something is off limits, the allure of the taboo makes it much more powerful than it ought to be. When the priority is health and establishing long-term lifestyle change, rather than a short-term quick fix, the pressure is off, and the success is on!

Here are some tips I developed to stay on track while enjoying everything I wanted to experience as I began my adult life.

1. Nothing is off-limits. Especially in college, the abundance of food (from buffet-style dining halls to late-night pizza runs to free-flowing booze) can be overwhelming. Remember that these are always available, and you will therefore have ample opportunity to indulge—and you should! But it also teaches a valuable lesson: if you pass up a grilled cheese or apple pie slice tonight, chances are it will appear again soon. The biggest thing is to remember that you can have it whenever you want, so there’s no urgency to gobble it all up while it’s in front of you. If you learn how to enjoy in moderation, you will never feel deprived. (This is a trick that definitely applies post-graduation!)

2. Always plan ahead. I identified five major danger zones specific to college campuses where it is tempting to unconsciously eat poorly. (Many of these are also relevant to finding a work-life balance). The FIVE DANGER ZONES are: studying, parties and campus gatherings, watching TV with friends, tailgating, and late-night chats. In each of these scenarios, it’s very easy to eat without thinking about it—how often do you reach into the nearest bag of crunchy snacks while catching the latest episode of “24?”—and the foods on hand are, more often than not, over-processed, pre-packaged junk. If you take a few moments to plan ahead—eat an apple before heading to a party so you’re not starving, keep a glass of water in your hands at all times, put aside a portion you’re comfortable eating of whatever your favorite tv-watching nosh might be and stick to that—you’ll spare yourself the torture and temptation.

3. Live consciously. Again, this is something that I started to develop as a college student, but it’s worth learning and applying at any stage in life. Figuring out how to put the joy and pleasure back into eating so that you can savor the many tastes and indulge (in moderation) in the things that you love is crucial to establishing a healthy lifestyle that lasts. Michael Pollan, in his book “In Defense of Food,” spoke about the “perfunctory” nature of American eating, attributing this development to the outright abundance of food in the United States and our collective removal from its production. In places where food and cultural appreciation are still inextricably linked, eating is a much-anticipated activity: meals are slower, food is chewed over, enjoyment is essential. If you can find ways to work these simple pleasures into your daily life—that’s not to say you need to prepare massive feasts from scratch everyday; even your boxed salad can serve as something to linger over and savor—you’ll be well on your way to ending the tyranny of food in your life.

4. Take action. It is important to become involved in what food is available so that you have the essential access to make healthful decisions every day. I grew up purely vegetarian, and though I did reincorporate a small amount of meat into my diet, it was crucial for me to find ways to have protein without resorting to the “mystery meat” served at the cafeteria. In high school, I managed to work closely with cafeteria staff and school administration to implement a whole slew of new health initiatives, including student-submitted vegetarian recipes, daily salad and soup bar options, and Odwalla juice to replace soda on campus. This kind of change could take place on a much larger scale on college campuses—and I am a major proponent of universities harnessing their purchasing power and their role as educators to blaze a trail towards healthy stewardship in America. But for those not looking to go head-to-head with the university president, here are a couple smaller-scale options:

a. Consult your cafeteria staff. Often, there are things in the fridge that they do not make available because they are unaware that anyone wants it. Make a point of voicing any allergies or specific food needs to the head chef or purchaser for your cafeteria, and more often than not, they will find a way to accommodate your needs.

b. See whether you can establish a farm-to-school program. This is a trend that is sweeping the nation, as more and more schools invest in purchasing a portion or majority of their cafeteria supplies from local producers. It saves on transportation costs, and the result is fresher, more wholesome food for everyone!

c. Food shop and pilfer. Once a week, I borrowed a friend’s car and ran to the local grocery store near my college. We were fortunate to have an independent health food store very near campus, and I would buy my main foodstuffs and snacks there, supplementing with salad items, whole grains, and cereals from the cafeteria.

d. Start a farmer’s market. While I was in college, one of my best friends established the first farmer’s market run fully by students. It came to campus every Tuesday and flooded the commons with fruits and vegetables, local dairy products, fresh bakery bread, and a slew of other delicious goodies. Depending on where you live, the local farmers and food producers are generally thrilled to partner with the surrounding community, both to gain exposure and sell their products directly.