It's one o'clock in the morning. Laura, a university freshman, is sitting at her desk, finishing up her nightly batch of homework. Her hand absentmindedly wanders into the bag of potato chips resting beside her notebook.

As she goes over her work one last time, she washes down a greasy mouthful of chips with a gulp of soda. When she's done, she collapses into bed and tries to snatch what little sleep she can from the early morning darkness.

"There's a lot of snacking," Laura says, in regards to college life. "Late-night snacks, study snacks. There's a lot of ways you can find to snack."

Many people see the start of a new year as a time for renewal -- a chance to start over with improved study habits, better money management and healthier living. Some people take New Year's resolutions very seriously, creating a plan of attack for guaranteed success. Others figure their current habits have worked over the last year, so why change?

Many people are filled with enthusiasm for healthy living at this time of the year. Of course, the trick is to make those New Year's resolutions last!

New Year's resolutions can be particularly difficult for college students living on campus.

"You live in one room, so your food is usually sitting right next to you all of the time," Laura says. "Your fridge is so small that you usually don't have things like fruits or vegetables. It's always chips and popcorn and stuff like that. And a lot of times the fridge is too small to store things like water and juices, so you drink pop. Studying, you tend to snack to keep yourself awake, or you drink a lot of pop or a lot of coffee to keep yourself awake."

Snacking can become quite a habit. But this is not the only dietary change that can occur in a new student's life. Skipping meals is common when class schedules are tight.

"A lot of the time you wake up five minutes before class, so you don't eat breakfast any more," Laura says. "Neither my roommate nor I ever ate breakfast. It was just better to sleep that extra 15 minutes than to try to eat."

The poor decisions many students make in regards to their diets go hand in hand with another problem common among college freshmen: lack of exercise.

"Second semester, I started noticing my eating habits and how incredibly unhealthy they were," says freshman Ashley. "They had a big gym that everyone could go to, but in every dorm, or at least my dorm, they had a little workout room in the basement. And so almost every night I'd go down there and run on the treadmill. So I kept myself fit second semester, but if it hadn't been in the basement, I probably wouldn't have exercised."

On-campus sports are also a great way to stay fit and interact with fellow students, as Amanda discovered.

"I played with a rugby team during first semester. I couldn't second semester, 'cause it didn't work out with my schedule. So I ended up just running on a regular basis. Most people just join the sports teams...if they want to be in shape, because there are enough low-key intramural ones."

One of the stereotypes surrounding college students is severe sleep deprivation. While many laugh this off as a joke, it can become quite serious.

"Getting to bed by midnight is considered a beautiful, beautiful thing that rarely happens," Amanda jokes. "There was a girl at my school who pulled two all-nighters in a row during finals week. I would go down and work until 3 in the morning, working on my papers. This one night I went to bed at 3 and I still had work to do, so I went back down at 6 to work on my papers and she was still there. She hadn't left. And she'd only had an apple in that span of time, and all the caffeine.

"Seriously, maintaining physical health is one of the lesser concerns. It's an attitude of procrastination combined with lots and lots of homework."

The combination of poor diet, lack of exercise, sleep deprivation and an overwhelming homework load can really add up. When that happens, these minor physical hardships can lead to much greater health risks.

"They [students] tend to burn the candle at both ends," says Alex, a sixth-year student. "They stay up late every night, they party, and the next morning they're up for their eight o'clock class. They just burn the candle at both ends trying to do everything at once. That's the biggest health risk...students are sleep deprived and end up destroying their immune systems."

When we don't get enough sleep, we experience poor memory and concentration, fatigue, low energy, and even emotional problems and depression. Without enough sleep, sick people will not recover as quickly.

When a student's immune system is weakened, it leaves that student defenseless against many harmful diseases present in the college environment. One of these diseases, which can sometimes be lethal, is meningococcal meningitis.

"Meningitis is actually an inflammation of the meninges that cover the spinal cord," says epidemiologist Larry Shireley. Symptoms include a stiff neck, a headache, sore eyes and a rash.

"Freshmen living in dormitories may be at an increased risk of meningitis. It can be transmitted primarily through respiratory secretions from person to person, such as sharing a cigarette, sodas, obviously through very close personal contact -- kissing, or saliva."

Although the stereotypes surrounding the health of college freshmen are not unfounded, not all students throw their own health to the wind. Ultimately, it's a question of responsibility and commitment.