While no college meal plan will ever be perfect, universities have spent thousands of dollars and hours adapting their dining halls over the past few decades. In this effort, UO came up with the point system as an alternative to buffet-style dining.
In overpricing nutritious and filling food and incentivizing restrictive diets, the point system inadvertently leads students to develop unhealthy and unfulfilling eating habits. This underserves first-year students, who, due to the stress of the college transition, need to be nutritionally supported by their university.
As explained by University Housing, “All residential meal plans except for the Carson based plan operate on a flexible point system loaded weekly on your UO ID and can be used at any of the 14 dining venues.” Students receive points on Sundays and spend them throughout the week on drinks, meals and other foods.
With UO’s point-style meal plans, fruits, vegetables and high-protein options cost significantly more points than less nutrient-rich carbs. For instance, an order of fries from Dux Bistro costs one point while a small salad costs three. This contrast encourages less nutritious eating, robbing students of the foods that will keep them energized and full throughout the day.
“At the dining halls, I felt like it was hard to eat enough protein and be able to afford three meals a day. I ended up eating out multiple times a week in order to feel full,” UO second-year Ryan Pirrung said.
Due to lower-point meal plans — such as the 65 point Select compared to the 80 point Standard — costing significantly less, students often opt to have fewer points and restrict their food intake rather than pay extra hundreds of dollars on top of their already expensive housing costs.
With the prevalence of “Pointflation,” the loss of point value and rising prices of campus food, students are further pressured to skip meals or opt out of protein, fruits and vegetables. Whether or not these choices match the needs of individual bodies and lifestyles.
And when it comes to Carson Dining Hall, the buffet-style plan which offers five points a week to spend at other dining venues, by far the most limiting meal plan, students are punished for choosing the most inexpensive option.
UO sophomore, India Roane, said she felt isolated by her choice of meal plan.
“I could only eat outside of Carson once a week, so I wasn’t able to eat with friends and relied on other people’s meal plans if I wanted to eat with them. It felt embarrassing,” she said.
For those with alternative diets, Carson also fell short. Roane continued, “Being lactose intolerant was really hard at Carson. A lot of the dinners were just mac and cheese and pizza, so I would end up eating chips and salsa for dinner all the time.”
Both at buffet-style Carson and at point-operating dining venues, students also often feel pressure to “get the most bang for their buck,” overeating in an attempt to best capitalize off of their costly and mandatory meal plan.
In my own experience, I hated the thought of wasting rollover points at the end of the term, and in order to avoid this, I would purchase snacks and meals that I didn’t fully want or need. Much of the time, undesired food would end up in the trash, and my points were wasted.
When it comes to the organization of UO’s dining halls, our current set-up is insufficient. Students deserve to be nutritionally supported by their university, no matter their financial situation, and UO must restructure its dining options to best accomplish this.
