I want a pasta wheel. It looks like a pizza-cutter with a ribboned edge, perfect for making crinkly raviolis as you slice through your homemade pasta dough, around evenly spaced mounds of fresh spinach leaves and ricotta cheese (with just a dash of black ground pepper).

And it would fit perfectly next to my imaginary potato peeler, egg whisk, vegetable steamer and pie tins.

My refrigerator, like my ideal kitchen, is full of good intentions. Aging fruit (sounds better than rotting), slowly molding whole-wheat bread, half-eaten bags of pita, and a bag of romaine lettuce leaves so wilted it makes me sad just to look at it.

But like a lot of college students, my default, my love, is pizza. And the occasional non-Chinese Chinese meal, smothered in orange sauce. Or yogurt that tastes more like artificially flavored lemon meringue pie than real yogurt.

A recent study of college student eating habits at Tufts University confirms my worst nutritional self-doubt. Although it reported that the “Freshman 15” is a myth (men gain an average of six pounds their freshman year, women 4.5), the rest of the study is, well, exactly what you’d expect.

Yup, there are some good students who lead active lifestyles, eat fruits and vegetables, keep saturated fat down, and consume adequate amounts of calcium. And the other 70 percent just plain suck.

Most of us are well on our way to developing diet and exercise patterns that can lead to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis and obesity.

Vegetarians aren’t exempt, either. One-third of the students who reported they didn’t eat red meat had the same level of “bad cholesterol” as meat-eaters. Guess you can’t substitute a carb overload, ice-cream and cookies for meat.

The usual backlash to this is “well, I’d rather live a short, happy life with a juicy steak than a long one with tofu” or other anti-health industry backlash.

I’m sick of being told by Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and every other news anchor in the nation that I’m unhealthy — it conflicts directly with most of the food I’ve eaten since I graduated from Gerber.

The sad truth is, I’m the target audience for those broadcasts. But all they yield are massive amounts of guilt, not an incentive to change my lifestyle.

So how can we change our habits? Guilt obviously isn’t working, as all it inspires is self-loathing, backlash and yo-yo fad diets. The same study said that 40 percent of normal weight college women think that they’re overweight.

Maybe we should start with eliminating the distinction between “healthy” and “unhealthy” foods. A hamburger is a hamburger. It tastes good on a bun with lettuce, onions, and a dab of ketchup. Refried beans are pretty tasty as well, especially mixed with fresh tomatoes and tortillas. Open up any “three-ingredient-or-less” cookbook. It’s full of good stuff.

You don’t have to shop in the health foods section to eat well. Just spend a little more time with the fresh food, a little less with copying what food service feeds you. Eating well doesn’t always mean low-fat, low-carb, low-taste.

There are a million flavors to play with, and we stick with the artificial ones in Hy-Vee’s frozen food section. Mix up your flavors and your food choices, and eat lots of them. Just do it in smaller meals. Forget three meals a day. Eat five small, varied ones. More food, more happiness. And guess what? You feel happier when you exercise. This doesn’t mean three grueling hours at the Rec each day. Try biking to the store, walking to campus, taking a ballroom dance class and practicing in your spare time.

Living a long life free from Type II diabetes and heart problems doesn’t mean miserly eating and grueling exercise.

And I’m certainly not giving up pizza.