Assessment of a University Campus Food Environment, California, 2015

What is it about?

We used an established tool to evaluate the healthfulness of the food environment at a 4-year state university in California. We found that most venues offered some 'healthful' dishes, but overall only 12% of all entrées and 36% of all main dish salads offered on campus qualified as healthful. We also found that food courts offered a wide range of healthful choices, mostly in the form of healthful side dishes and beverages. Campus food stores offered more healthful choices than typical convenience stores - for example, in the form of low-fat options or fresh produce.

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Why is it important?

This study is unique in providing a complete picture of the food environment of one campus community. For on-campus students, who are often required to purchase a dining plan and have limited access to a kitchen, almost every meal is equivalent to “eating out,” and eating out is consistently associated with poor diet quality. Given students’ dependence on the campus food environment, universities have a responsibility to provide a food environment that facilitates and supports healthful eating, at a minimum by increasing the availability of healthful prepared foods or healthful foods to be prepared as meals. These results provide information to inform interventions to make the food environment more conducive to healthful eating by students.