A recent study by the University of Connecticut and Fairfield University researchers takes a comprehensive look at food environments at colleges and how they impact students’ nutrition. Their findings show that nutritional quality of options varies by location, level of convenience and time of day.
“College students often fail to meet national guidelines for dietary intake, which in part has been associated with university food environments, where students’ dietary choices may be limited by the nutritional quality of campus food choices,” the abstract states.
The study, which was published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Research, was conducted over the course of a year across different locations and dining venues “at a small, private, liberal arts university in northeastern U.S. from spring-fall 2017.” The group gathered data from a buffet-style dining hall, a food court with various cuisine stations, a retail coffee and bagel stall and vending machines in different locations.
Their data evaluated the nutrition of menu items for calories, carbohydrates, fats, sodium and other metrics per serving.
“We observed that the commercial coffee and bagel shop menu included items with the highest amount of energy, carbohydrates, sugar, total and saturated fat, protein, and sodium on average compared to other dining options,” their results state. “Conversely, dining hall options provided the lowest energy, carbohydrates, sugar, total and saturated fat on average, in addition to the highest amount of fiber. Surprisingly, vending machine items contained the lowest amount of sodium on average.”
The study additionally compared the nutritional quality of options at different times of day, “in order to fully capture the nutritional quality and profile of an institution.” The group did not observe many differences in nutrition for dining hall options on different days of the week, for example, but did see some depending on mealtimes, such as higher sugar options at breakfast.
“In this pilot study, we demonstrated that the nutritional quality of food items significantly varied across all on-campus dining venues, and that, while non-convenience dining options (dining hall) tended to offer foods with greater nutritional quality, convenience dining venues offered some of the highest and lowest quality food items, suggesting that selective convenience dining can serve as a fast, healthy option,” the study states.
The research was led by Catherine J. Andersen, an associate professor in UConn’s department of nutritional sciences. Kristina Murray, Alexander Gaito, Lydia Dupree and Layra Cintron-Rivera from Fairfield University’s biology program rounded out the study; Andersen previously served as an associate professor in biology there.
“My research employs clinical, nutrigenomic and translational approaches to investigate the relationship between diet and lifestyle factors, metabolic health and immune function,” Andersen’s UConn biography states.
The research was funded in part by the National Consortium for Building Healthy Academic Communities, which promotes comprehensive wellness and resulting productivity in education, and the UConn College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources.
Andersen says that the study serves as a pilot for work that could be conducted nationally, to determine the differences in nutritional quality at larger, public institutions and other schools in different regions.