If one were to offer a small, 7-year-old child the choice between a slice of pizza or a bowl of vegetable stew, most children would take the pizza. Even as adults, many find it difficult to stick with healthier eating choices, so how much more difficult is it for children who are just learning to use self-control? If, over the next period of their life, rather than consistently being offered healthy eating options, children are exposed to highly processed and often more appealing food, their taste buds will be set on easy, junky foods rather than wholesome nutrients as they get older. Never having chosen the healthy option themselves, they will likely continue the cycle of unhealthful eating.
I am not saying that people lack information, as nearly every state requires that all high school students take one semester of a health class in order to graduate. However, if we do not back this information with a way for students to apply what they learned, students will only know what they should eat, as they never had the opportunity, discipline, or guidance to apply their knowledge. As a result, many high school students grow into college students who prefer the tasty and less nutrient-dense foods they were used to as kids, and while some make better choices, others do not. For the remainder of this article, healthy eating will be defined as eating food that is high in fiber, vitamins and protein while low in fats, refined sugars and sodium.
The issue of more nutritious eating for children is further complicated by the food options provided to elementary through high school students under the U.S. free or reduced-cost meal lunch programs in public schools. These meal programs often do not promote healthy choices, offering food with low nutritional value and high amounts of fats, refined sugar, sodium and calories.
The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) was established for students from low-income families, providing lunches at little to no cost, by President Harry Truman in 1946. The National School Lunch Act, passed by Congress, requires that lunches meet the following minimum nutritional requirements in order to be approved: 2 pints of milk, 1 ounce of protein-rich meat, 1/4 cup of legumes, 1/2 an egg, 1/2 cup of some sort of fruit or vegetable, 1 serving of some type of whole or enriched grain product and 1 teaspoon of butter or fortified margarine. This sounds like those plate pictures one learns about in elementary school that show how much of each food group should be on each plate. However, the variety of healthful food available to children in the past is no longer the reality experienced by many children today.
Typically, public schools only receive partial federal reimbursements for each meal. A school’s other source of payment for meals is student purchases for lunches or other additional items. As a result, schools would try to offer on-brand and popular snack foods for children to purchase to increase their revenue. As the number of students eligible for free lunches increased, many schools were either unable or unwilling to build larger kitchens and cafeterias, so they turned to either outsourcing the cooking or relying upon easy-to-heat and serve items, such as pizza and chicken nuggets. This allows the companies producing these products for schools to easily increase their revenue. As children were more likely to purchase a bag of Doritos over an apple, selling their merchandise to schools was sure to bring in a steady stream of income.
Congress tried to combat this rise in processed food availability through the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010, stipulating limits on sugar, fat, sodium and calorie levels in products sold in schools. However, companies simply changed the formulas of their foods and began offering “smart snacks”—low-nutrient foods that were not bad enough to be disqualified from school markets. Not only was the temptation for children still present, but the understanding that they were actually purchasing “healthy” options clouded their understanding of what real healthy eating looks like. In addition to snack availability, most school lunches are held to even lower quality criteria than fast food.
This brings us back to students growing up with little experience in healthy eating as they transition into college living. As there are really no regulations for food options offered in colleges, some universities have fast food locations included in students’ meal plans. Furthermore, even the “healthier” options actually contain less nutrients which means that there are often very limited healthful food options for students. Even students who try to eat healthier may not receive the nutrients they need.
A study published in 2022 shows that of the 3,781 food and beverage items at universities that were scaled, 83% of foods had more than 35% of the calories as fat, 71% had less than 1.4 grams of fiber for every 100 calories and 55% had more than 10% of its calories due to sugar. What this means is that out of the food available to students sampled, over 50% of foods lacked high nutritional value. Further, college students often made poor food choices, such as snacking frequently, consuming deep-fried food at least three times a week and having a low intake of vegetables and fruits.
However, it is not a lack of education that is causing the problem, for most students that participated in the study were aware of the food pyramid and the amounts from various food groups that one should consume. A further study agrees that it is seldom the lack of knowledge that prevents students from making good food choices, but rather the convenience and habits or taste of less nutritious foods.
The habits of opting for more convenient, and often less healthy, foods often starts when people are children, and the taste of the fast food also plays a factor. If raised on the typical lunch program, students—although possessing knowledge about nutrition—would not have grown up applying those principles, resulting in a discrepancy between knowledge possessed and choices made. Finances are also an issue, making it difficult to afford healthy nutrition. As such, they often continue making those choices as adults not just because of preferences but also out of necessity. Although their children are educated about nutrition at school, parents’ budgets and the lunch options at school result in knowledge but no application, as the lunch meal at school may be their only meal of the day. This creates a cycle in which parents are not able to practice eating healthy food, and their children also are not able to, creating a situation where children do not have access to nutritionally healthy food at either home or school and as they move on to college, they still do not have healthy options, so they likely will not change their lifestyle.
However, here at Andrews University, students have a greater variety of healthy options, in addition to some fast foods such as fries. If more students were placed in environments where access to healthy food was increased and access to processed foods decreased, the eating habits of students could change for the better, as even those who have a background in unhealthy eating will be placed in environments where healthy eating is promoted and accessible. If we took a step forward and increased the healthy options available to elementary through high school students in addition to education and practical classes where students can apply what they’ve learned, we could alter the food choices made by college students so that rather than turning to healthy eating only in college, if at all, they begin the transition into adulthood with healthy habits set in place.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.