<p>How to address the food issue can vary so much based on the physical layout of a school, where the cafeterias are, where students spend their days, whether the school is in a city where sandwich shops, cafes and food courts abound. When my daughter was in college, her school did not have a meal plan. Freshmen lived in apartment style dorms with kitchenettes and the school is in a major city where within a 2 block radius of the 2 buildings where MT’s spent most of their days, there were a load of places to grab food. (Now that my daughter graduated, of course, the school is now offering meal plans and is building a large cafeteria in a former restaurant 10 feet away from the entrance of the primary theatre building.) A solution for those who need to pack their meals could be a small insulated cold bags with reusable ice packs. We use them to transport perishable food when taking long car drives weekend getaways where we are bringing some of our own food. They come in a variety of sizes, are washable and many could fit in a student’s gear or dance bag.</p>
<p>As to dancers smoking, I once looked at a building used as the practice hall for a professional ballet company. The locker rooms were filled with cigarette butts. I work in the city where my daughter’s college is located and walk past the building that houses the college of performing arts. The number of students outside smoking is appalling. It’s really a college epidemic.</p>