Fit meets food at SU Intramural Complex

Students hoping to combat the dreaded freshman 15 or who just want to pick up a nutritious meal or smoothie have now been graced with campus’ newest addition, Fitblendz.
According to general manager Hunter Head, FitBlendz is a nutritional café that provides healthy alternatives to what college students are normally accustomed to eating.
“We provide everything from nutritional meal plans to supplementation, vitamins,” said Head, “we do breakfast, lunch, dinner and high protein-low calorie smoothies.”
Head says that FitBlendz’ biggest difference from their competition is that they offer healthy-low calories meals in addition to smoothies.
Trayvon Stevens, an electrical engineering major from Alexandria, LA has been to Fitblendz twice and says he loves that there is a place on campus where he can eat freely and be fit.
Head says that the decision to provide students with healthy, nutritiously fit choices is a personal one.
“I come from a family of diabetes, my major was kinesiology, athletic medicine, so I kind of see the benefit of watching what you eat, keeping active and not living a sedentary lifestyle.”
Head went on to add that he would really like to get a health kick started on campus because of the unhealthy food choices many Louisianans make.
“Baton Rouge and Louisiana in general [being healthy] is not really a thing,” said Head “I’m from Texas and we’re always in the gym and watching what we eat.”
According to the Center for Disease Controls Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity chart, nearly 70 percent of all adult Louisianans are either overweight or obese.
Head says that he’s currently in the process of designing meal plan blueprints for students to make it affordable and simple for students to live a healthy lifestyle.
Sophomore psychology major Adia Rascoe was eating a FitBlendz for the first time after being introduced to it by a friend and said that the good prices, friendly atmosphere and healthy food will keep her coming back.
“To bring healthy food options to a college at a lower price is a great option,” said Rascoe “I was just on the phone with my mother telling her how excited I was.”
Coordinator of membership and marketing Sheldon Jones is one of three coordinators for the intramural sports complex and was instrumental in FitBlendz coming to Southern University.
Jones said that the purpose of bringing FitBlendz to the complex was to address student’s needs for healthier alternatives on campus.
“That students would not have to go off campus or across town in order to eat nutritious was important for us to address,” said Jones.
Jones added that no only is FitBlendz the only nutritional café on campus but it’s the only one available in North Baton Rouge.
Nina Gipson is a fitness and wellness coordinator for the complex who says that SU is in what they call a dry zone when it comes to accessing healthy food options and that FitBlendz can now fill that role.
“We are promoting a healthier Jaguar Nation,” said Gipson “It takes one paw print at a time and this is our first step.”
Head says that although the reception from students has been really good, his biggest customers so far have been faculty.
“The faculty has probably enjoyed it more than anybody else here,” said Head “I offer 10 percent off the tickets of main faculty and police just to give back to them.” finished Head.
Located in the Southern University Intramural Sports Complex, FitBlendz’ hours are from 7AM to 8PM Monday through Friday and 12PM to 5 PM on Saturday.