College eating habits signify the peak of unhealthy eating in your lifetime.

For the four years you attend university, you will have consumed thousands of processed foods, sugars, soft drinks (with or without alcohol) and saturated fats.

Sometimes you will binge, eating a significant portion of food in one sitting but not very often; other times, you will eat Canes, Chik-fil-A or In-N-Out habitually, and the non-nutritious foods end up turning into carbohydrates and digesting in your stomach.

This leads to a multitude of health concerns.

In the short run, you will obviously gain weight. Your skin will start to break out. You will feel fatigued easily, and you will continue to crave these processed foods as long as you eat them.

Usually a temporary change in diet and exercise solves the problem. At our prime physical age, our metabolisms are fast enough to break down and drop the extra pounds if any are gained. Then, once we are at a healthy body weight and size we are comfortable with, we tend to slip back into our indulgent and unhealthy tendencies.

This cyclical process continues throughout college, but usually declines once you are older.

After years of ingesting processed food and boxed sweets, your body eventually realizes how horrible it makes you feel. You tend to stick to your healthier eating habits and work out regularly in order to maintain your body and elongate your lifespan once you are a full-blown adult (aka: graduated college).

However, if you do not realize that your body will not maintain its physique as it is now, you will unfortunately face many consequences.

And the most horrid one is acid reflux.

According to the New York Times, acid reflux (or gastroesophageal reflux disease) is when stomach contents (food or liquid) leak backwards from the stomach into the esophagus (the tube from the mouth to the stomach). This action can irritate the esophagus, causing heartburn and other symptoms. In the worst case scenario, it may lead to esophageal cancer.

It currently affects 40 percent of Americans, and it develops the moment fast food is considered part of your diet.

Acid reflux is developing more in younger patients due to the prominence of fast foods, easy-made and frozen food and drink products they are consuming.

Surprisingly enough, a factor contributing to acid reflux is eating late at night.

All the pizza at Mac’s Place, Whataburger and Jimmy John’s you decided to eat has found a way to haunt you in ways you didn’t expect.

It doesn’t even have to be unhealthy foods- studies have found that eating late at night makes us overeat in order to compensate for the lack of nutrition we restricted our bodies from during the day by skipping breakfast and prolonging lunch and dinner.

This allows symptoms of acid reflux to develop such as postnasal drip, sinus disease, hoarseness, heartburn and a chronic cough.

If these symptoms worsen, and eating habits do not change, this can lead to esophageal damage by burning holes through the mucous lining and increasing chances of throat cancer.

So what’s the solution?

It’s simply to cut back on unhealthy foods.

As hard as it is to abstain, your body retains all the food you’ve consumed, even when you can’t remember.

Skipping or delaying meals because you are busy with work, late to class or think you’re not “that hungry” does not justify these actions.

Your body is a machine. It needs fuel to run in the forms of carbohydrates, protein and fats.

But it needs healthy forms of these to run properly.

Cut back on the honey butter chicken biscuits, animal fries and pizzas. Do not consume these processed foods more than once every few weeks.

Instead, refuel by ingesting lean protein and plenty of fruits and vegetables.

In the long run your body will thank you.