by Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux
Earlier this week, in the midst of the chaos of back-to-school obligations, I arrived at dinner and realized that I had literally forgotten to eat all day. Sitting at a table full of friends, I looked down at my plate full of salad and vegetarian lasagna and almost cried with joy at the thought of food. The sense of pure, unmitigated gratitude that I felt was unusual for me. I love food, but like most women and, increasingly, men, I have a fairly twisted relationship with my body and the foods that I use to nourish it. Two years ago, for example, I was so hell-bent on avoiding the freshmen fifteen that I ate nothing but salad, Diet Coke and yogurt (hardly a balanced diet) for a period of months, and when I finally made peace with my body weight and shape, I stopped thinking about what I was eating altogether, and suddenly found myself ten pounds heavier and back into a cycle of self-loathing, occasional fasting, and constant guilt when I didn’t visit the gym.
College does not make it easy for people who struggle with issues with food. Eating disorders are rampant, but rarely discussed. We’re all familiar with the glance to a friend’s plate, to see whether she is eating macaroni and cheese or salad, and the implicit self-judgment that follows, and we recognize the man or woman who is always on the treadmill at the gym, desperately trying to erase every scrap of body fat (Courtney Martin describes this eloquently in her book, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters). Freshmen year is one of the most challenging times for people who have struggled with body issues, because it is full of adjustment and confusion. If you decide to start drinking for the first time, alcohol adds hundreds of phantom calories that you vaguely feel you should be counting, but you’re often too busy and overwhelmed to think about what you’re putting in your mouth. Thus the dreaded “freshmen fifteen” – the extra weight that countless college guides warn against, and offer helpful tips to help avoid (I will never forget the sight of my freshmen year roommate, who owned such a book, scraping out the innards of a bagel and munching on the empty shell, saying, “I think bread is going to be my worst enemy this year.”). Some colleges have decided to join the struggle against this supposedly unnecessary weight gain, including Yale, which recently added calorie counts to residential dining halls.
There was an interesting article in Newsweek this past week about this very phenomenon. New York City was the first to lead the way by requiring calorie labels in all major food chains, a decision that I feel very uncertain about, but college campuses are following, in an attempt to encourage college students to put down the French fries and reach for some lettuce instead. The calorie counts are supposed to make students more aware of what they’re eating. But do they really? The article points out, rightly, that the sight of calorie numbers can be very triggering for people who are struggling with eating disorders already – instead of thinking about nutrition and eating a balanced diet, they fall back into patterns of calorie counting and guilt over eating. Calories add a level of shame to the process of eating that is all too familiar to me. Sadie over at Jezebel points out, rightly, that it often doesn’t really help to know that a doughnut might actually have fewer calories than a bagel with cream cheese. Chances are that I’d eat the bagel anyway, but most of the pleasure would be taken away. I’d feel like I didn’t have any self-control, and later that day, I’d deprive myself of another food I wanted.
Counting calories makes eating into something clinical. And inevitably, the focus should be on health rather than weight – going to the gym 3 or 4 times a week is great, but you don’t need to go every day. Eating a salad is good for you, but if you want some ice cream afterward, you should have some – without feeling guilty. If dining halls really want to make students healthier, they can offer more vegetarian and vegan options and cut down on the amount of grease and fat in the food options. I gained weight my freshmen year because it was impossible to be vegetarian and eat healthily. Pizza was my only option, and knowing the number of calories would only have made me feel horrible about myself, and maybe not eat at all.
Going into my junior year, I still struggle with food. I scold myself for not going to the gym, and will go a week without dessert for some terrible, arbitrary reason. But I do know that the only way my school can help me is by giving me better food options, not by playing to the Type A calorie counter that lives deep inside me and countless other college students. And I hope that freshmen entering Princeton this fall can find ways to eat healthily and celebrate their bodies and their meals at the same time. After all, eating is one of the most intense physical pleasures we can experience. And in a college student’s stressful life, it should be a source of joy.
Thank you. Thank you thank you.
I actually didn’t “struggle” with food my freshman year, only because I didn’t think about it. I wasn’t eating right, but didn’t think about it at all. The counting and fixating on calories came later. I agree wholeheartedly with the fact that colleges should focus on WHAT and HOW they’re MAKING the food, not just what people know about the food. I have several food allergies and am a vegetarian, limiting my options to salad, oatmeal, and wait, what’s that? salad. I lost 10lbs my first year of college- just because the caf food was inadequate and consisted of fried chicken or pizza. (okay, they’re getting better about having a vegetarian section a few dinners a week, but there’s no variety in it)
If college health is going to change, we need to be educating about HEALTH, not just about calories.
I recognize that calorie listings can be triggering for some individuals, but I think that a program listing calories can be of enough benefit to those who do not struggle with eating disorders that it should stay in place, especially in college. Ones body composition is essentially a reflection of their lifestyle (combined with genetic predisposition) and when making the transition to college you are essentially building a new lifestyle. It would help to give students the information that will help them achieve a lifestyle that is healthy.
Honestly, better than removing calorie listings would be providing even more information to people. It would be great if the conversation about dieting and exercise could be snatched away from the diet industry. After all, they have a vested interest in keeping misinformation out there, because maintaining a healthy weight doesn’t cost a penny if you have the right information. I would love to see colleges require at least one kinesthesiology class and one on basic human physiology class. That alone would be a huge step in putting things back on the right track.
Also, I believe that the kind of insecurity that leads to eating disorders is something that needs to be treated with counseling (and counseling on body issues and eating disorders is another thing that colleges should put more energy towards). Social pressures certainly aggravate the condition, but if one is in such a state that they can be triggered when basic information like calorie content is made available, then simply hiding that information from everyone is not going to solve their problem.
This. Taking away soda machines and making pizzas whole-wheat doesn’t do a thing if they’re drowning in grease or if the meat they serve is so processed it’s devoid of nutrients.
Dining halls also remove most of your connection with the food — not just how it’s prepared, but where it came from and who made it. Without that sort of emotional tie, there’s even more room for anxiety and unhealthy eating practices.
I would much rather know the economic and environmental stats on my food (where did it come from, who farmed/processed it, how was it paid for, how was it transported, etc) than the caloric ones. Calorie counting isn’t necessary when practicing intuitive eating. When I find that my eating patterns are making me uncomfortable or unhappy, I don’t blame the food — I look to what’s going on in the context of my life that’s throwing off my ability to eat in a way that’s healthy for me (i.e., STRESS and avoidance). When I am struggling in my life, it comes out in how I eat, but my eating patterns are a symptom, not the pathology.
This is a really timely topic for me. Over the last two days, I’ve received a number of really upsetting messages about food and exercise that are totally contrary to my personal philosophy but are coming from people I don’t feel comfortable arguing with. I guess I’ve been building up a fine head of steam over it!
I remember I actually lost weight my freshman year because I was running around and doing so much more walking around campus than I did in high school.
It caught up to me, though. Haha.
There’s a lot I could say to this, but I’m just going to start with a myth debunking. The Freshman 15 is a myth.
From the article: “While the [Tufts study] finds that students do gain weight their first year, the average is about only 6 pounds for men and 4.5 pounds for women.”http://enews.tufts.edu/stories/1191/2002/01/11/Freshman15AMyth
I’d also like to point out that it’s frustrating to see vegetarianism equated with a weightloss diet.
Failure to lose weight on a vegetarian diet is here equated with not eating the right thing (as Amelia does here in blaming the college food choices on her failure to lose weight while being a vegetarian).
Many vegetarians are fat and will remain fat while being vegetarians simply because weight is extremely heritable and extremely difficult to change for the vast majority of people, regardless of whether or not they eat meat (and regardless of *what* they eat.
The site Junkfood Science offers countless studies demonstrating this, and the recent Newsweek issue discusses some of those studies.
Also, the alternative to dieting Amelia’s hinting at is actually a philosophy called HAES (Health at any Size). If you’re interesting in reading more about it, Linda Bacon’s written a good book about it and she has a website up here:
http://www.haescommunity.org/
Eating correctly has recently been proven to be much more important than getting exercise; and only normal excercise is required to stay in shape.
I don’t want to see the calories of everything. Maybe they could just have calorie numbers available if someone asks. Seeing the number of calories in an obvious place would make me feel like I should be thinking of calories. I might consciously tell myself to pay attention to other things but still, they’ve put the thoughts in my head. I just want to eat what looks good. And what if the food is so high in calories that someone feels they can only eat salad after seeing calorie numbers. I remember my university listing amounts of vitamins sometimes but I don’t remember anything else. Thankfully, we always had a few vegetarian and vegan options for supper and some of these changed every night for a couple weeks. I met so many vegetarians at my university, they couldn’t not do that.
Like you said, schools also need better mental heath programs. Since I have started college, I have been nearly crippled by depression and disordered eating. I went to my campus mental health office and saw a graduate student about six times. I always felt worse when I left and our last meeting included me telling him off, leaving in tears and thinking how lucky he was that I was so vulnerable at that moment and couldn’t defend myself. He suggested I go to the one eating disorder and body image therapy group (which ended up being scheduled during one of my classes) but after that experience, I didn’t want to take the chance.
I feel like if schools do offer comprehensive mental health facilities, they make it so you have to jump through hoops to get helped and when you’re in experiencing a major depressive episode, just getting out of bed is hard, let alone going through a hassle like that…
I hate to be heartless here, but I can’t fully agree with everything in this post.
“But I do know that the only way my school can help me is by giving me better food options, not by playing to the Type A calorie counter that lives deep inside me and countless other college students”
I can’t help but feel this is taking the abdication of responsibility too far.
And giving you calorie counts on meals can’t help? I may be reading this wrong, but are you suggesting that they remove calorie counts because it could/is triggering? If so, that would be a grossly irresponsible thing to suggest…
This is not overwhelmingly eloquent. But I am a bit emotionally triggered.
>> If so, that would be a grossly irresponsible thing to suggest…
How is it grossly irresponsible? Posting calorie counts essentially says, “Keeping track of the exact number of calories you ingest is how to determine how healthy you are.” Scientifically, that is simply untrue.
Anorexia is the deadliest mental illness. Period. And while eating disorders affect people of all ages and places in life, college students are smack in the primary demographic, age-wise and environment-wise. And let me tell you, when someone is in the hell that is anorexia, the calorie count of a food can become the only thing that matters. And the thing is that you don’t have control over it. Biochemically, it’s an addition. Putting calorie counts in front of someone who is anorexic is like putting heroin in the hands of an addict in withdrawal.
So am I suggesting that (some) people with anorexia can’t be responsible for themselves when it comes to food? Yeah, you know what? I am. I don’t speak for everyone, but I know I wasn’t. I relapsed the first semester of my freshman year, and the only reason I didn’t completely crash and burn was that I dragged myself to the cafeteria instead of the food court. Why? Because the cafeteria didn’t post calorie counts, and believe me, I knew exactly how many calories were in every single item sold at the fast food places on campus. Posting the numbers at the cafeteria, too, would have been devasting. I am not alone in this.
No, colleges aren’t parents. But I think they have at least *some* degree of obligation to keep their students…alive? Able to obsess about Francophone literature instead of food?
Some ideas for healthful-ing up college cafeterias:
1. Eliminate trays! You eat less if you have less in front of you. It’s been proven that getting rid of trays also cuts down on wasted food, thus saving money for the school as well.
2. Have fruit that is in season, ripe, and not bruised.
3. Get rid of the ice cream machine. Or maybe, just get rid of the ice cream *cones*, so students don’t finish the meal, including dessert, and then grab an extra ice cream on the way out just because they can.
4. For the love of all that is holy, low-fat salad dressing besides ranch. PLEASE.
Agreed that the culture of eating, particularly in college (I remember being the only girl to have a full entree rather than a salad at a dance camp) can be really damaging. Rather than focusing on calories, I think the emphasis ought to be on balance and freshness, where food is coming from and how people are eating. One thing that I think is really problematic is the strict set meal times; as somebody who prefers to eat smaller amounts throughout the day, I find cafeteria times frustrating.
However, calorie counts and other nutritional information is really helpful for people who need to track what they eat. My youngest brother was recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and having carb counts on food is crucial for him to know how much insulin to inject. It’s helpful in other ways, too– I’ve noticed that I need to track my sodium intake just for my own well-being. I don’t think the solution is hiding nutritional information away, but in re-evaluating the culture of food and how we eat.
Ones body composition is essentially a reflection of their lifestyle (combined with genetic predisposition) and when making the transition to college you are essentially building a new lifestyle. It would help to give students the information that will help them achieve a lifestyle that is healthy.
I agree with this a great deal. Before going to college I hadn’t ever really had to think about what I ate; everything at home was pretty healthy and most of the desserts were homemade, so I knew in a general sense what went into my mouth. I would think like, oh, slice of pie, that’s gotta be like 200 calories-ish, right? and eat it if I wanted because that’s how it worked at home. In the cafeteria, however, there was a lot more processed food and until I worked in the dining hall one year I genuinely had no idea how many calories/grams of fat/grams of sugar some stuff was. I really don’t diet at all but I do like to keep in mind eating healthy, so I’ll have yogurt with fruit rather than ice cream, or something baked rather than something fried, etc. But going to college, I’d be eating stuff that was *way* more calories than I suspected, and it just wasn’t great for me. I was naive in a lot of ways (alcohol has calories? oreos have how much fat?? :p) and having calorie counts posted would have been really helpful for me in eating the way I intended to.
An example: pie at home = about 200 calories for a slice (1 stick of butter and a cup of sugar for the whole thing, maybe) while pie at school = 300-500 calories a slice (and more 15-syllable words in the ingredient list than I care to think about.) That’s really information that people should have access to.
I don’t understand why they can’t just split the difference: make calorie and nutritional information available in pamplet form for people who want that stuff, but don’t display it where everyone has to see it so you avoid triggering people with various disorders. If the goal is health and harm reduction, then it’s best to err on the side of caution. Not displaying that info prominently isn’t going to directly lead to harm or death, but if you do display that stuff, it could very easily lead to harm or death by directly triggering eating disorders in what study after study confirms is a vulnerable time for developing those kinds of disorders (or making existing disorders worse).
Lance said:
“I would love to see colleges require at least one kinesthesiology class and one on basic human physiology class.”
They did at my college, and unfortunately it isn’t exactly a cure all. There was a girl in my class who I wasn’t friends with exactly, more like acquaintances who lived on the same dorm floor, who was a recovering bulimic. Part of the requirement for the class was to keep a calorie count log of everything we ate for two weeks and an exercise log of calories expended for those two weeks as well. For most students, that wasn’t a problem, in fact it was probably even enlightening. Unfortunately for this one girl, it triggered her bulimia again and the next semester she was hospitalized and ended up having to drop out of school. I don’t know if she ever made it back.
I think if anything, all of this just demonstrates that trying to treat students as one big institutionalized mass is a lose/lose proposition. An individualized approach, or even a tracked one (as in, students with certain needs are grouped together for a program track that addresses their needs as they relate to food, health care, course scheduling/homework or what have you). I realize this is never going to happen, though, since 1) I don’t know how they’d make more money off of that and 2) I doubt they really give a shit, when you get right down to it. If I sound cynical, that’s because I am :)
The pressure to practice “intuitive eating” is experienced just as oppressively by people who put weight on easily and cannot afford to be heavy, because they can’t buy new clothes, etc. Something to be mindful of when patting yourself on the back for being able to eat “intuitively” without gaining weight. That may be something age takes from you, as well.
@ Amanda Marcotte
Actually, I came back here this morning and re-read my comment, and didn’t like it very much. I don’t know where my head was at, but my tone was condescending, and, especially after reading some comments in this thread that came after mine, very narrowly focused on just my own experiences, which are impacted by my current economic security. My desire was to react to anti-fat bias and body-shaming as it relates to conceptions of healthy eating, but I don’t think I did that very well at all. I apologize for being an ass about class privilege. One oppression does not justify another.
At the Big Ten university in my backyard, there is a food court with ten or more options for styles of food that you can choose from daily — paninis, Thai, pizza, smoothies, etc. After reading all the comments and doing a little reflection, it occurred to me that the truly healthy choices, or the food choices where you can look at the item and know it’s pizza and not processed cheese food product on frankenbread with “tomato sauce (may include additives)”, are few and far between. Even items like yogurt with fruit, which most would consider a healthy breakfast, are slammed with corn syrup and extra sugars.
Calorie count is such a small bit of information about what you’re ingesting that I wonder why they bother posting that instead of overhauling the food court so they actually have something other than aesthetics to bother about.
I think Raksha and Amanda make good points. Some may find the nutritional info helpful, others may not want to see it. Having booklets available solves the problem.
For example, I was at our local coffee place with my husband the other day, took a look at one of the booklets they had, and saw that his favorite blueberry muffin was 800 calories. That was so far beyond anything he could have imagined that I shared it with him and he decided to get the granola instead. Pretty harmless, but worthwhile info. It’s easy enough not to pick up the booklet if one doesn’t want to.
RE Amanda’s point about intuitive eating. Some people don’t have the metabolisms to not count calories at all, and are able to use nutritional info effectively and not obsessively to maintain the protein-carb-fat-calorie balance they want. What is the harm there? After awhile, if one is eating relatively cleanly without a lot of processed foods, one has a general sense of nutritional value without the need to check booklets, etc.
It’s easy enough not to pick up the booklet if one doesn’t want to.
With all due respect, for a lot of people who are seriously struggling with eating disorders…no, it’s actually *not* easy. In fact, it’s pretty damn hard.
Now, I’m not saying that colleges (or high schools or restaurants etc.) should be required to think only or even primarily of anorexia when arranging meal service. But perhaps something like general *categories* instead of specific numbers? I guess this would be something akin to the Weight Watchers “points” system. Or the IHOP menu, which instead of listing nutritional info per se (at least, where I live) has little graphics for “Low Calorie” “Low Fat” “Low Cholesterol” and so forth. This would not have been an ideal solution for me, granted, but it would have been a hell of a lot better than numbers.
I find the calorie counts helpful in the other direction–I forget to eat enough/at all fairly frequently, and knowing a ballpark of calories helps me stay healthy. (i.e., No, Virginia, that apple you ate didn’t have enough energy for the entire day)
It also helps with the blueberry muffin issue Octo pointed out earlier–if you don’t want to be getting that much of your energy from something like a muffin, it’s good to know that the muffin is 800 calories. (it would give me a migraine, personally, because I would then not feel hungry and forget to eat for eight hours).
Personally, I prefer to have that number right up where I can see it on the menu because it makes life easier when I’m on the run/it wastes less paper. But, I think the pamphlet suggestion, with full nutritional info, not just calories, is the best way to do the most good for the most number of people. That way those who need to avoid salt can avoid salt, diabetics can avoid sugar, etc etc.
Agree with everything except 1 and 3 as that effectively has the school acting too much like the overbearing helicopter parents that friends who teach/TA at many Ivy/Ivy-level universities have had to deal with.
Why should undergrads who are considered adults under the law continue to be effectively treated as children who cannot take care of themselves? Some of those undergrads may want the option of having an ice cream machine there for dessert on some or all occasions, especially considering many undergrads.their parents had effectively been forced to pay for their meal plans due to campus residency requirements…whether for first-years or even all 4 years unless one has an extremely good reason like my undergrad institution. Under such circumstances, why should I not have the option of grabbing an ice cream cone on the way out of the cafeteria if I wanted to…?
As for trays, eliminating them can cause logistics problems as a tray is far more handy in allowing them to conveniently carry their meal items. I would, however, agree with reducing the size of those trays as IME most trays at university or corporate cafeterias tend to be much larger than necessary.
This is the kind of thing that someone with the privilege of never having had an eating disorder or mental health condition can only say.
You think it’s somehow novel and new to suggest that people with EDs should try therapy? WOW! What an idea.
You’d almost think that most people struggling with ED already know about therapy, and struggle just as much with getting to it and getting through it.
So what you’re saying is, basically, “I’m going to throw out a ‘suggestion‘ that doesn’t actually give anything new to people at all as a tactic to avoid having to change anything about the way I live *my* life to help other people.”
In other words? Throwing around your privilege.
Calorie content availability? Great. Requiring it to be posted on every menu and overhead board? Huge freaking problem. Yes, it is enough of a problem that it just plain should not be done.
Because all of a sudden, people with EDs are triggered *every time and everywhere they go to eat.* You realize people HAVE to eat, right? And that they have to eat multiple times per day? Especially in a college setting where you are eating “out” every time you eat?
GREAT post. As a college senior, I finally have my own house and kitchen so I don’t have to depend on the cafeteria anymore. Thank goodness, because I had a lot of the problems you described, especially being vegetarian. For awhile, all I ate was grilled cheese, because it was the “healthiest” vegetarian option.
@ Willow “1. Eliminate trays! You eat less if you have less in front of you. It’s been proven that getting rid of trays also cuts down on wasted food, thus saving money for the school as well.”
My college got rid of trays last year and everyone loves it! We started off by having “Trayless Tuesdays” and now trays are completely gone (except for when the parents come visit– too many complaints otherwise!). Initially we got rid of trays for eco reasons, because of all the water and soap used to wash the trays, but it had the added bonus helping people cut back on the food they waste. Now, students only take what they can carry in two hands, and then if they decide they still need more food, they can go back and get it. But I’ve found that I usually only need the one trip. When you have a tray, you’re more likely to pick up food that initially looks appealing because it’s right in front of you, even if you don’t really need it. And then it lies uneaten on the tray as you send it down the conveyor belt to the kitchen.
You realize that there has to be a line somewhere, right? When are people going to start thinking that it’s required to simply stop talking, interacting, advertising, etc., because it’s a potential “trigger” for a minority of the population?
Sensitivity is one thing, but outright over-bearing, over-protective, don’t-upset-the-potential victim-of-something-we-can’t-anticipate-yet restrictions are just going a bit far. No one, no entity, no corporation or higher learning institution can possibly anticipate and accommodate every single potential problem that any random student or citizen might have. That’s just over the top and expecting way too much from everyone else.
“With all due respect, for a lot of people who are seriously struggling with eating disorders…no, it’s actually *not* easy. In fact, it’s pretty damn hard.”
William, with all due respect, as someone who did struggle with anorexia in college, believe me, the lack of presence of a pamphlet isn’t going to stop someone who’s obsessed with calories. Even back in the days when I was in college (late 80s/early 90s), before the existence of hundreds of easy-to-use calorie lookup programs on the net, those of us so inclined knew how to look up every possible combination of foods we ate, until it was all memorized.
An available but not flagrantly displayed pamphlet, focused around not just calories but info such as sodium, calcium, carbs, vitamins, cholestrol, etc., is much less likely to be a trigger above and beyond the eating experience generally. And in cases involving students with diabetes, high cholestrol (not just for older people), high blood pressure, etc., it would be incredibly helpful.
the lack of presence of a pamphlet isn’t going to stop someone who’s obsessed with calories
Oh, I totally agree (both rationally, and from experience). And I also agree that it would be beneficial to the vast majority of people to make available guidelines on nutritional info. I’m just proposing not to go to the level of individual calories. Grouping stuff by 100s, or having a 1-2-3-4-5 system of “health value” for various categories, or something that like, and making *that* information available by pamphlet.
Re. amanda: I didn’t see that as saying “hey, crazy people! heard of therapy?” at all. It’s true; merely refraining from posting calories isn’t enough to help people with eating disorders, they need stuff like therapy. A woman in my study group at school didn’t have access to calorie counts so she asked *me* how “big” her bagel was. “Is this a large bagel or a medium bagel? It seems big. I’m not supposed to eat a whole large bagel… d’you think it’s a medium?” etc. Obviously not knowing the exact number of calories didn’t help her — she just focused on getting a peer consensus on what she should eat instead. After about 20 minutes of reassurance (“that bagel looks totally normal, I eat bagels that size all the time, even 2 of ‘em”) she did, in fact, eat the bagel. But I wouldn’t call that no-calorie-count situation exactly hunky-dory, and it certainly didn’t fix her underlying problem. (Happily she was also in the middle of therapy, and her boyfriend was being supportive, so the fact that she would eat a bagel of any size was encouraging and was better than she’d been previously.)
But yeah, there is the perspective of “this triggers me so the world must avoid it at all costs” and there’s the perspective of “I am responsible for getting to a point where I’m not triggered by facing reality.” I think there can be a happy medium in there somewhere.
I’m just proposing not to go to the level of individual calories. Grouping stuff by 100s…
This seems pretty reasonable. My problem is that I assume stuff like smoothies are totally healthy (hey, it’s just fruit right?) but then my guess for how many calories are in them can be off by a good half an order of magnitude (how in god’s name do you cram 1000 calories into a freaking smoothie??) Orange Julius is apparently posting a calorie range on their menus now (this group of smoothies is 300-500 calories, this group is 100-300, etc.) and that seems more likely to be helpful without getting painfully specific.
Furthermore, I refuse to believe that people with eating disorders are so stupid as to believe that there are *no* calories in food unless someone tells them there are. 9.9 It seems a little weird to kind of try and sneak calories in without telling anyone (hey, this smoothie *might* be only 100 calories! you don’t know! go ahead, eat it!) in the hopes that someone with an eating disorder will unintentionally nourish themselves. If a college student wants to get fewer calories than she needs in a day she will find a way, regardless of calorie counts being posted.
Restaurants are, afaik, already required to provide nutritional information — or at least fast food establishments are. Usually you can look the information up on their website, or it’s on the back of your tray liner or in a pamphlet they can provide you if you ask.
Which seems fine to me. The information is available, you can seek it out if you want it. But the proposal (which has some popularity in lefty circles) of putting the calorie count along with the price of every single food in every single establishment has too much of a moralistic overtone, and encourages the sort of social body-hating that is already at disturbing levels in our society (imo).
Nutritional information is important and needs to be available. But the specific proposal — put it on every board in big letters! — just makes me very, very uncomfortable. The prevalence of clinical-level EDs and the sort of social body-negativity that doesn’t become a true problem but is still quite strong and all over the place … I really don’t think we need to be feeding that monster.
Bagelsan,
Thing is, I hear it often enough in discussions of this sort — including discussions with survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and other assorted ills — people will “helpfully suggest” that y’all just need to get therapy and then we won’t have to worry about these silly “trigger warnings” and stuff! In other words, I can go back to not having to acknowledge the uncomfortable reality of abuse and assault and illness, and just trust in the magical value of (choose one or more: therapy or medication or yoga or meditation or exercise or sunlight or this vitamin or that detox method) which of course completely solves whatever problem altogether.
Might as well go on a bingo card, actually.
Also, it ignores the fact that therapy doesn’t completely eliminate the illness or trauma. It’s still there. The person has coping mechanisms, now, but that doesn’t mean that they are or should be therefore prepared to face absolutely anything at any time while going about their everyday life.
It’s on the same level as objecting to these disturbing MTA ads in Chicago. Just ‘cuz abuse survivors have gone through therapy doesn’t mean it’s going to be pleasant to see that kind of ad on their ride to work/grocery store/friend’s place/whatever.
But perhaps something like general *categories* instead of specific numbers? I guess this would be something akin to the Weight Watchers “points” system. Or the IHOP menu, which instead of listing nutritional info per se (at least, where I live) has little graphics for “Low Calorie” “Low Fat” “Low Cholesterol” and so forth. This would not have been an ideal solution for me, granted, but it would have been a hell of a lot better than numbers.
I would have hated this system. When I was in college, what I frequently wanted was an ingredient list — I have some allergies, I’ve got blood sugar issues, and I’m vegan, and I have struggled a lot to keep my weight down. What I really wanted to know was how much sugar was in the peanut butter, whether the darker-colored bread was actually whole wheat or just “wheat,” how much sugar and oil was in the stir fry sauce. A calorie count would have been helpful, a full nutritional guide (with ingredients and all the nutritional information that would be on a product label) would have been GREATLY appreciated. There were several times that, when I saw a cafeteria worker restocking something at the salad bar or sandwich bar from a package, I asked if I could see the package to look at the nutrition information, and I was told that I couldn’t.
The suggestion of having the information available in a booklet, or maybe a website, seems like a decent compromise. I’m just very uncomfortable with a situation where I’m told to put something in my body but that I’m not allowed to know what’s in it. There were some days when all I had for dinner was a salad with olive oil and vinegar, because I couldn’t find anything else being served that I was reasonably certain wouldn’t make me sick. And probably at least some of those options that I rejected would have been OK, but I had to reject them because I didn’t have enough information to determine whether or not they were OK.
There is a sad irony here that what is healthy for some is in fact damaging for others. I have PCOS and have recently developed insulin resistance. I Need to know as much information as possible about what I will be eating if I am forced to eat out. Minimizing my carb and sugar intake is critical to maintaining my present level of health and staving off the development of diabetes as long as I can. The whole ‘lets just not use numbers’ idea while admirable would simply not work for me. Having dealt with an eating disorder in my past I can sympathize with not wanting to trigger others. Obviously it would be the height of privilege for me to suggest we ignore the needs of others to accommodate my own, but I guess that’s my point. If having nutritional stats right next to the menu is a trigger by all means lets do away with that practice, but please lets keep the option of knowing these stats available to those who need them, because it’s a matter of life and death for me too.
I think that given the prevalence of obesity and obesity-related diseases (pace, obesity denialists), telling people exactly how much they are eating is probably a good idea. With modern diets including so much fat and sugar in absolutely everything, most processed food probably has more calories than people realise. This is how people sleepwalk into obesity, by simply knowing absolutely nothing about nutrition.
As someone who has struggled with eating disorders, it’s touching to see the concern displayed but thanks, as has been noted by numerous people I’m not stupid enough to just drop the ED mentality when calorie counts are not present. How many here seriously think anorexics go to Pizza Hut and chug down large cokes followed by two large grease platters if they aren’t told exactly how many calories are in them?
My thoughts, in list form:
- I don’t believe obesity is an actual disease. I think obesity is related to many diseases, but I dislike calling it a disease.
- However, I think it makes some sense to call obesity a disability.
- But I think most people who are obese can and should change their diets.
- However, it would be a whole lot easier for them if some major social and political changes occurred that made healthy, low-fat, nutrient-rich food available everywhere and the government stopped subsidizing and enabling fast food.
- Of course, we can all make choices and if you care about your health, animals, and/or the planet, you should consider eating like you care about those things: go vegan!
- Calories are one of many elements of information that can help people make healthy choices (see comment #15), but calorie counts alone are not enough. Percentage of fat, sodium, and sugar are important, too.
- Mandatory nutrition classes could probably help college students more than calorie count listings, but both could help.
- The China Study should be required reading for anyone concerned about human health.
In other words, I can go back to not having to acknowledge the uncomfortable reality of abuse and assault and illness, and just trust in the magical value of (choose one or more: therapy or medication or yoga or meditation or exercise or sunlight or this vitamin or that detox method) which of course completely solves whatever problem altogether.
Might as well go on a bingo card, actually.
Yeah, and that’s why I said “happy medium” not “victims can suck it.” When I was a little kid I had panic attacks that were triggered by, oh joy, it getting dark outside. It was miserable and unfair but not really something that I could ask the world to please readjust for me. I believe that trying to keep a balanced approach to calories/nutrition labels is probably going to end up as the kind of compromise that doesn’t thrill anyone (and does require a certain level of general tolerance from people who, in a perfect world, would not have to put up with more shit) but that doesn’t mean I hate people with eating disorders. I just think it’s a little bit like me as a kid: the reality of the world isn’t working so well, that sucks, but there is a limited amount that anyone can do about it and we need to acknowledge the needs of others in the equation too, even if it feels (really) bad. (The needs of my roommate, for example, who didn’t want the room lit up with 3 different lamps while she slept despite my occasionally crippling fear of the dark.)
How many here seriously think anorexics go to Pizza Hut and chug down large cokes followed by two large grease platters if they aren’t told exactly how many calories are in them?
Nobody here has said that. What *has* been said, however, is that posting calorie counts can be harmful for people besides those with anorexia. First of all, as the OP mentioned, some people–and I’m not talking about people with any sort of ED here–experience personal guilt if they do not eat the lowest-calorie option. That can lead to disordered eating during the rest of the day (again, referencing the OP). Also, add in an element of peer pressure–Crap, I’m eating more calories than them again–and you have the ingredients for more bad feelings about oneself.
I am not unsympathetic to the need to know exactly what and how much of what is in food. I have a handful of food allergies and disability-related nutrition requirements that, combined, make it nearly impossible for me to eat out. Ingredient lists, in particular, are a *Godsend* to me, and it makes perfect sense to require those to be made available upon request. But when it comes to exact calories counts? I would rather eat the aforementioned lettuce and oil/vinegar every meal for a month, personal health be damned, than risk putting anyone else through the absolute hell I went through.
Willow — sorry to get your name wrong!
My thinking in terms of nutritional info is that in the real world, anorexics often transition not to purely intuitive eating, but to some stage in which there is still a control over what one eats, but a focus on health rather than low-calories. And yes, this is not hypothetical :). I found that going from a focus on looking like waify models to emulating women in Women’s Health and Oxygen allowed me an easier transition to normal eating than the naive (for me anyway) hope that somehow I was going to start happily eating intuitively.
And so when I was learning not to be anorexic, it was more comforting to know what I was eating and know it was healthy, balanced, and yes, an amount of calories that would allow me to maintain my weight, than to attempt to eat intuitively in a circumstance in which so many things were already out of my control. Had someone put pamphlets together with a numbering system, for this reason as well as those stated by Bagelsan, Ruchama, Surely and others above, it would simply create more work and not create a magic environment in which I would somehow be able to eat intuitively.
Speaking as someone who attended a college on a scholarship while taking course overloads and working part-time to defray college expenses, I would have found it highly aggravating to have to rush in, grab what I can get with two hands, and if I am still hungry, rejoin the often long lines to get seconds. That would not have worked well for me, especially considering I had evening classes, shifts, and study time, especially when the college cafeterias were only open for 2-3 hours at a time and some of them happen to overlap with classes, shifts, and extracurricular commitment I had.
Moreover, we were all mandated to live on campus and thus, pay for a meal plan or pay to join a co-op where we’d have to contribute substantial labor time each week and face the real possibility of running out of food during the latter part of the semester if that co-op’s budget/food planning was off. Hence, the trays work better for me to grab as much food as I need once, sit, eat, and run. Moreover, the trays were a great way to grab extra fruits, drinks, and other portable foods to sneak into my backpack so I can stock up my room for the days/times I cannot make a mealtime and/or for a study snack during times the dining halls weren’t open and maximize my college budget, especially considering I was already paying an exorbitant amount for that mandated meal plan anyways.
But exholt, aren’t you prioritizing your need for speed over environmental concerns? Making two trips might be inconvenient, but it’s better than wasting masses of water. Besides, student could always hide fruit in their bags.
I’m one who’s pointed out the similarities between how society treats fat people and the social model of disability, but somehow I don’t think that’s what you’re getting at here.
Fail.
This argument reminds me of ones I’ve encountered from environmental activists at my undergrad who were blind to their class privileges as they didn’t have the time pressures coming from class overloads, working part-time jobs during the semester, class schedules, extracurricular commitments, and requirements to maintain a minimum GPA to keep said scholarship because their parents were able to pay full tuition, expenses, and more. IME, the ones who tend to push this point were almost always those whose undergrad expenses were fully defrayed by their parents and/or their trust funds.
Also, the way most college cafeterias were set up, it was impractical to sneak extra food into your pack until you are at a table because cafeteria staff often had rules prohibiting students from taking food out….even though we’ve paid an exorbitant amount for those meal plans due to mandatory residency requirements. Finding practical ways to get around those rules was one good way to ensure students like myself were able to stock up on fruits, other portable food items, and drinks without breaking our limited budgets for the semester/year.
And some people have disabilities–which are not always visible–which make getting food at the dining hall difficult enough even with a tray. My college instituted a no-trays policy during my last semester and while I’m sympathetic to the environmental arguments for the policy, I would have liked disability concerns to at least figure into the decision-making process. I have dyspraxic tendencies, and simply making no trays available at all makes it more difficult for me to comfortably get my food without spilling it over myself and other people.
Some comments on this thread are fatphobic. Number 35 is particularly egregious.
@ exholt:
Your comments about the privileges inherent in the environmental argument against tray use are exactly why I did not raise that point in my initial suggestion of eliminating trays. Food waste can be a significant drain on college funds, and eliminating trays for a sizable student body cuts down very significantly, overall on that waste, which thus saves the school a lot of money. In the current economic mess, colleges are being pressured both to cut costs wherever they can AND to increase aid–money that has to come from somewhere. In addition to helping fund financial aid, there is the matter of employment. For example, my current school (grad school) eliminated trays in the cafeterias in hopes that they would save enough money to rehire all the full-time maintenance and facilities staff without cutting hours or pay (amazingly, it worked).
Also, while I realize that I have not eaten at every cafeteria at every college in the country, every one that I have been to has provided take-out containers in addition to plates. If your time-crunch really is that bad, you can grab and go…or, if you want to eat at the cafeteria with your friends but still take some food out, go through the line with the take-out box, head for the table, then go back and just grab a plate.
And then there’s the grad student credo, BYOT: Bring Your Own Tupperware.
@ Sarah:
Not a systemic -ism comment, but more on a personal level, have you talked to Disabilities Services at your school about being permitted special use of a tray? Dyspraxia is not an issue for me most of the time, but for what it’s worth, DS has been *fantastic* for me, and I’m not just talking about things like extended test time.
Also, while I realize that I have not eaten at every cafeteria at every college in the country, every one that I have been to has provided take-out containers in addition to plates.
My college actually got rid of the takeout containers my senior year (many of us fussed about it, but they didn’t care.) All the environmentalists felt really good about themselves, and all the students who were majoring in lab sciences felt really hungry (taking lab classes literally doubled the number of hours spent in class per week, and often meant that lunch was but a fond dream.)
(Yes, I just invented not-taking-lots-of-lab-classes privilege. Hah! :p)
My college had two cafeterias. One was for people on meal plan, and you paid at the beginning of the year and scanned your card to get in, and then you were allowed to eat however much you wanted while you were inside, but you were not allowed to bring food outside. (If you walked out while eating a cookie or an apple or something, they usually wouldn’t say anything, but you weren’t allowed to put food in your bag, and there were no takeout containers.) The other cafeteria had some fast food places and a salad bar and a “homestyle” station with more cafeteria-type food, and you’d pick what you wanted and pay a set price for each item. At that one, there were takeout containers. Freshmen were required to be on meal plan, so if they wanted a meal in a takeout container, they would have to pay for the meal at the takeout cafeteria after having already paid for all their meals on meal plan. (Freshmen were also required to put some ridiculous amount of money on the school debit cards, which could be used for the takeout food. IIRC, that would be enough to pay for maybe two meals a week, if you also used it to pay for other expenses like school supplies and snacks and stuff.)
None of those would have worked on several college cafeterias I’ve eaten at, especially my own as they all had strict policies against taking any food out with some stationing cafeteria staff members specifically to dissuade students dumb enough to open carry fruits and other food items out of the cafeteria. Not surprisingly, none provided takeout boxes as they wanted to restrict students to only eating food in the dining halls.
Heck, I’ve witnessed several instances of students getting into shouting matches with cafeteria staff/officials over this very issue, especially when the students have a good point that since they/their families paid for the meal plans, they are justified in taking some extra food for later snacking/meals if their schedules conflict with subsequent dining hall times.
This is the first time I’ve heard of colleges allowing students to take food out of dining halls and even providing means to do so. None of the ones I’ve been to would allow students to take food out necessitating our loading up our trays and then sneaking the excess in our bags when we’re at a table far from the eyes of the cafeteria officials/staff. Then again, it may be due to colleges changing their policies since I graduated in the late ’90s.
Although I did say that we weren’t supposed to take food out, it was *not* strictly enforced. Usually the only “staff member” at the door was some freshman doing work-study in the dining hall, and they didn’t give a damn if you took out food. :p So even without takeout I would often go in, eat breakfast, and then wobble out the door with a travel mug of coffee, an apple, and a bagel or two all balanced on one arm for lunch later.
Trays helped with but weren’t necessary for this procedure; mostly I cared about takeout containers (which are likely worse for the environment than trays, but whatev.
One thing I don’t think a lot of the pro-mandatory-calorie-counts people are taking into consideration is that it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to be all that precise when measuring the calorie counts of prepared foods. As it is, the manufacturers and distributors of the ingredients that go into making those prepared foods are only legally required to estimate calorie counts within 20 percent accuracy, and guess which direction they’re going to estimate in to maximize profits? Hint: Not up.
Are all chicken breasts the same size? Does every raisin-bran muffin have the same number of raisins in it? Are all french fries the same length and width, and does each order have exactly the same number of fries, and has each order spent exactly the same amount of time in the oil? Of course not. So that makes it even harder to arrive at anything close to an exact count, so a lot of chains just throw their hands in the air and <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124700756153408321.html make shit up that sounds right.
“Obesity denialism,” my medication-inflated ass. I’d still be fricking huge if I never ever ate out or consumed so much a mouthful of soda or “junk food.” I’m fatter now that I almost never eat that stuff than I was when I consumed it regularly. So they can put all the skulls and crossbones on the menu they want to to let me know that my order is about to poison me, I just won’t go there, since I don’t have to.
But that’s now, after I have learned far more about my body than I knew in college and have a lot more choices. I think if they’d had calorie counts on all the menus then, I’d have chosen the lowest-calorie thing I could possibly have eaten, and then been ravenous two hours later and grabbed a snack to prevent myself from passing out from hypoglycemia. And then felt terrible about being a greedy pig who needed so much food. I can’t even imagine how horrible that stuff must be for people trying to recover from full-blown EDs, not to be able to escape it.
Eek, forgot to close tags on my link. Here it is again:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124700756153408321.html
Trackback… (if I had been smart enough to choose wordpress in the 1st place, I wouldn’t have to do this the old fashioned way):
How we’ve changed, continued
The problem with calorie counts is they don’t tell the whole story. A bagel with cream cheese may have more calories than a donut, but it also has less sugar, more protein, less trans fat and in the case of a whole grain bagel, more fibre. If people look at the calorie counts and decide that they may as well have the donut since the bagel has so many calories, the calorie counts aren’t doing them in favours, health wise. I agree with the people who have said the best option would be to have the complete nutritional information available in pamphlet form, so that those who want or need it can see it and those who are trying to move away from a calorie counting mentality don’t have to have it shoved in their face.
And just to quickly address this:
Some people don’t have the metabolisms to not count calories at all,
Some people don’t have the metabolisms to not count calories and be thin. Those of us who are driven crazy by calorie counting but have slow metabolisms can still stop if we want to – it just means accepting the fact that our natural weight is heavier than we might like and learning to be okay with that. I’m not saying everyone should have to – your eating habits are none of my business – but for some of us it’s the right decision.
Exholt, those worst hit by pollution and scarcity of resources are much less privileged than you; the fact that you can ignore environmental concerns is a sign of privilege. But in any case, getting rid of the mandatory meal plans would be a good idea. Equipping the halls of residence with good kitchens and getting rid of the food court altogether would save money and wasted food, as well as freeing up space, though that would only work in an urban environment where it’s possible to grab food from a store if you forget your lunch. My university has no cafeteria, just a small cafe and eating area.
Considering the fact that every college classmate who has made such an argument IME had their college expenses defrayed by upper/upper-middle class parents and/or their trust-funds, the credibility of the messengers and message tends to be a bit suspect to me and other students who were on scholarships and worked part-time to defray expenses not covered….especially when they exhibited strong classist tendencies and assumptions….
Agreed…though good luck with that!!
Cafeteria contractors like Aramark et al will fight tooth and nail to keep mandatory meal plans going as they are often quite profitable, especially considering how students mandated to live in dorms are captive customers who have to pay an exorbitant amount per meal. Think of all the times students have to miss meals due to conflicting schedules, forgetfulness, etc. Moreover, it would not surprise me if the college is getting some money out of the deal too……
As for saving colleges money….I can’t help but get the impression the college President and senior admins at many institutions are motivated more to cut expenses on the backs of students/parents so they can maintain their high salaries and perks…including dedicated limo service for the college Prez at some institutions I’ve visited. IMHO, better to cut their salaries and perks first….along with renegotiating the dining hall contract with the contractor so any savings realized from policies such as tray eliminations can be passed directly onto the students/parents….
Willow:
I wouldn’t say that. What are you basing that assessment on?
NIMH, the NY Times, TIME magazine, ANAD, a “survey says” of the scholarly literature…take your pick.
Can I see some links?
There are some pretty freakin’ poor expectations for a lot of disorders, particularly when you start venturing into the territory of dual disordered mental illnesses. I know anorexia nervosa has a shocking (and unacceptable) fatality rate (and that’s not even mentioning non-fatal physical complications) but I’m inclined to suspect sensationalism when it’s labelled as “the worst”.
Dual disordered bipolar/schizophrenia, for example, has a survival rate of one in six when the disorders manifest in early adulthood. I’ve seen nothing to suggest that anorexia nervosa has such a death rate. And that’s just looking at the disorder pairing I’m most (reluctantly) familiar with.
ANAD seems to think the death rate is about six per cent. The estimated death rate of schizophrenia alone (not taking into account dual disorders) is ten per cent.
Being a freshman in college this year, I know a lot about the “freshmen fifteen.” I’ve had body image problems for most of my life. Nothing serious (although I did try) but just enough to make me miserable. My parents never *made* me eat my vegetables, and we always had sweets in the house, so I never had the proper “balanced” diet that I should have had. I’m educated, and I know eating disorders are bad and skipping meals are bad and eating healthy is good–but I never learned *how* to eat healthy. So now that I’m in college, and I don’t have many friends in my building, I don’t normally eat in the dining hall. I don’t normally eat period. When I do eat, it’s either soem sort of snack bar, soda, or a roll of cholocate chip cookie dough. And I feel bad for eating this way, and then I feel bad about my body. And then I feel bad about feeling bad about my body. Needless to say, the first three weeks of college have definitely taken it’s toll on me, although I haven’t actually weighed to see how much.
So that’s all I have to say for now…
I just wanted to thank you for writing this. As someone who has just started her first year of college and is a recovering bulimic, I could really relate to it–I seem to always forgot there are others who struggle with the same problems as me. However, I do wish there was some type of nutritional information packet about dining hall food. Not to know how many calories are in certain items, but to learn their ingredients. When I know what’s in my food, I feel a lot more confident making healthy choices.