Mississippi’s obesity rate is over 35 percent. Out of the 3 million or so people living here, over one million are obese.
Mississippians are, on average, some of the most overweight Americans, even amongst other states in the South. Yet next semester we’re going to be seeing Steak ‘n Shake and Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers coming to Ole Miss.
My first response isn’t to ask “Why?” – I already know why – but rather, “Do profit margins really matter more than people?”
Here at Ole Miss, everyone always talks about community. The first day I showed up for Freshman Orientation, I was greeted with a hug. I was told about how “We’re all just one big family.” Well, I’m becoming more and more convinced that the administration is just paying lip service to the students.
If they cared about the health of the students, these two restaurants would not be coming to Ole Miss. Right now, our healthy food options are incredibly limited. You can get Freshii if you want to pay $10 for a meal with no drink. Subway is often thought of as a healthy choice, yet people on average consume as many calories as they do at McDonald’s when eating there. Yeah, we have a salad place, but how many people are realistically going to eat salad for lunch every day of the week?
But wait – Ole Miss gave us the power to choose, right? We were the ones that chose Steak n’ Shake, right? Please. Anyone that saw the vote percentages knew it was over from the start. Steak n’ Shake had something like 80 percent of the votes on the first day. If you think that Ole Miss had any doubt in its mind whether or not students would choose a popular burger chain like Mooyah or Steak n’ Shake over Au Bon Pain, a relatively unheard of “café bakery,” then you’re delusional.
That’s why if Ole Miss Dining really cared about its students, it wouldn’t have given us a vote. People with bad eating habits – as in, a vast majority of students on campuses across the world – aren’t going to look at a vote with those restaurant options and think “Wow, finally, a chance to turn my life around!”
As someone who weighed over 210 pounds at high school graduation, I know that. Major food chains know that. The Ole Miss Dining administration knows that. Simply giving students a vote isn’t enough to incite a change. This was just a ploy, just a defensive measure that Ole Miss will turn to when they need to deflect criticism – “Hey, don’t blame us! The students themselves voted for it!”
Healthy options need to be put there in the physical world, i.e. at the Union food court, whether people like it or not. People with bad eating habits need to be forced to see healthier options if they’re ever going to make a change.
Seeing Toss It Up and Freshii helps to some degree, but, let’s be honest, how well does ordering salad or an Asian vegetable broth bowl with edamame and tofu resonate with Southern guys?
How comfortable do overweight people feel when standing in line to order a salad?
Giving us Freshii and Toss It Up and claiming that’s somehow a fulfilling list of healthy food options is just ignorant. Freshii isn’t even in the Union; people don’t want to walk all the way past the library when their class is a two minute walk from the Union.
If Ole Miss Dining actually cared about our health, we would be seeing a restaurant like Au Bon Pain in the Union next semester regardless of what the student body thought about it.
So, now we’re going to see the return of a burger chain. Not just burgers, but shakes. Everyone already knows about the godlike status of Steak ‘n Shake’s shakes. Even if someone thinks the burgers and fries are pretty mediocre, the 500 to over 1000 calorie shakes are still an alluring option. And if you happen to like their burgers and fries – as most people do – then you’re easily looking at a 1,500 to 2,000 calorie meal.
Oh, and if you get tired of burgers and shakes then you’ve got fried chicken tenders next door. These two new additions to Ole Miss are going to do nothing but contribute to a steadily growing and worsening obesity problem, and Ole Miss is going to do nothing but sit and watch it happen while counting the profits.
Enjoy the burgers, fries, shakes and chicken tenders. We really earned them.
Brandon Lynam is a sophomore international studies and Chinese major from Knoxville, Tennessee.
