The Lazy Journalist: In awe of the melon-munching students

The diet of your average British student has come on in the last 20 or so years and I’m sure there’s an awful lot more nutrients and less lard floating about their fridges and dank cupboards.
Steve HollowaySteve Holloway
Steve Holloway

But the wholesome fresh-faced melon-munching young souls emblazoned on an advertising hoarding around a batch of forthcoming new student housing (not far from the University of Brighton’s Cockcroft building) appear to have the most blameless diets in Europe.

I spotted them as I lolloped along the Loos Road heading towards the gym at Moulsecoomb Leisure Centre, fortunately not eating crisps at the time, but in awe of their rice cake-eating ways.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

As my hastily-snapped photo shows (I was standing behind barriers close to passing traffic) the tyro academics and future captains of industry seem to be into extremely wholesome fare, heavy on fruit and veg, with the odd cheese platter and pot of plump olives.

Healthy-eating visions of life in the very nice-looking student accommodation by scape.comHealthy-eating visions of life in the very nice-looking student accommodation by scape.com
Healthy-eating visions of life in the very nice-looking student accommodation by scape.com

If you look closely, the chaps in the top-right of the photo seem to be about to enjoy a repast of cucumber, yellow peppers and large green leaves of something pleasant.

I was initially a tad sceptical of this bright vision of good living and my mind wandered to my years at the same venerable institution, which didn’t exactly tally with the above.

However, the past is most definitely a foreign culinary country, and memories of £1 doner kebabs and too many fishfinger sandwiches are of no use to anyone.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It’s probably more sensible to accept that tastes and dietary habits have improved and the ad is closer to the reality of today’s diets than my grotty eating habits of yore/bore.

As ever my diet fluctuates wildly between Joe Wicks and Kevin in Home Alone, but hope and Diet Coke springs eternal.

Gym visits are on the up, after a difficult January which saw my back flare up and spasm horribly in two completely different places. A ghastly and painful business which has meant I’ve missed most of the new year fitness rush and both the Prince Regent and the Moulsecoomb gyms seem to be back to normal attendance levels.

I’ve also had a little sesh with Ryan O’Gorman, Freedom Leisure health and fitness manager for Brighton and Hove.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Ryan has shown me some rather natty little exercises involving the machine, whose name escapes me but is a twin-weighted affair with pulleys and inter-changable handles (after years and years knocking around these places I’m still a mostly a clueless old duffer).

The new exercises include my first bicep curl in a few years, so hopefully come the summer months I’ll be wearing vests to show off my monstrous guns.

To find out more about Freedom Leisure’s gyms visit www.freedom-leisure.co.uk