The Chimes

Issue date: 1/28/10 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Nathan Ball Unhealthy choices include drinking alcohol every Friday night, praying to a Porcelain God and smoking various substances.

As the smell of putrid vomit films my olfactory bulb bright and early on a Saturday morning, I know that there is only one place on Capital's campus that I could be: The Healthy Choices Men's Restroom.

Now, before you start to think that this is going to be some sick attempt at making fun of someone who is bulimic or was deathly ill, it's not. It's my attempt at pointing out the flaws in the Healthy Choices living on campus.

Don't get me wrong... Healthy Choices started off as a good idea. I'm sure it looked golden on the drawing board, but so did making a reality TV show that followed the life of a typical, yet dysfunctional, suburban family with twins and sextuplets (and look where that golden idea got them--Eight kids, bad Ed Hardy clothes, hair extensions and a divorce).

So what are the flaws?

Well to start off with, there are probably a healthy (pun intended) 10 percent (and don't quote me on that statistic, since I just made it up) that actually abstain from making 'Unhealthy' Choices like that of drinking alcohol, smoking various substances or doing other things that cause your body to wither away in later years. Which is dandy, but what about the other 90 percent?

Well their moms obviously filled out their housing forms in the summer thinking that their children would come to school and blossom. Instead, their children came to school and experienced party central on Sheridan Ave. and now pray to the Porcelain God every Friday night.

However, in furthering my "research" on Healthy Choices, I came to learn that not everyone who lives in Healthy Choices asked to be put there.

So what can be done to fix it? One thing that could reduce the amount of unhealthy choice making would be to have each incoming student who wants to live there write an essay explaining exactly why they want to be placed in the Healthy Choices wing.

Sounds laborious, I know, but if a student really wants to live in Healthy Choices they will take the time to ensure their college stay will be healthy.

I think something that would help out with a lot of the problem is not placing random people in there to fill up space. If there are only 30 people who really want to live in a Healthy Choices wing, then separate those 30 people from everyone who doesn't make Healthy Choices.

I don't want Capital to get rid of Healthy Choices living all together. This first time didn't work, but who's to say that it couldn't in the future? Look at Tiger Woods, he didn't give up on his wife... he just explored other options. It's a good idea, but the kinks need to be worked out.

I could be wrong about all of this, I don't even live there, but I think some minor problems could be fixed so that the real Healthy Choice people can be happy and be able to live where they deserve: Utopia.

By Connor Thompson
Contributor
cthompso@capital.edu

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools