Bring Back Nutrition Facts

Harvard’s checkbooks may be fat, but its students aren’t. Harvard’s high proportion of student athletes and a general perfectionist attitude have likely spared it from the national obesity epidemic—look around any dining hall to see students noticeably thinner than the national average. Of course, the same factors that keep us fit also leave us vulnerable to eating disorders. However, HUDS’s recent decision to remove nutritional information from dining hall placards will not only serve as an ineffective means of fighting eating disorders, but also deprive the majority of students of useful guidelines for making healthy eating choices.

Eating disorders are certainly a serious concern. Anorexia has a fatality rate of five to 20 percent according to the National Eating Disorders Association, which is significantly higher than the suicide risk for depression , and it is particularly likely to occur among women of college age. But we have to treat this illness by educating students about risk factors and symptom detection in their peers, not by attempting to keep nutritional information out of sight.

The main problem with the new placards is that they will be ineffective. HUDS has stated that its goal was to help “people who have eating disorders or who struggle with issues around the literal value of food,” but people with eating disorders, especially educated ones, are able to count calories with or without numbers floating above the serving line. Sufferers of an eating disorder have memorized calorie counts for their foods, down to the caloric difference between a piece of grilled chicken cooked in butter compared with olive oil.

Rather than worsen this obsession, it is possible that providing calorie information might correct false assumptions. For instance, a student may categorically assume that there are 115 calories in an ounce of cheese, when really the amount could be much less if it’s part-skim cheese, or more if it’s triple-cream cheese.

In addition, people with eating disorders are not the only ones HUDS serves, and we as a school should make an effort to promote healthy eating for all of our students. I often see people filling a plate with mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese, and while neither food is poison on its own, a high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal without enough vitamins or a full complement of protein can cause weight gain and feelings of lethargy. Also, a tendency to strictly subdivide foods into a “healthy” and an “unhealthy” category (brown rice good, cookies bad) ignores the importance of variety and of fresh fruits and vegetables, two things stressed by FDA guidelines.

Admittedly, the information provided by HUDS before this year was not perfect. Though a breakdown of fat, carbohydrates, and protein and a suggested serving size is useful information, it is too complicated to help plan a nutritionally balanced meal on the fly. Ideally, dining halls could provide some of the information displayed in the past along with a picture of a plate with appropriate portions for each meal. Not only would this help the majority of Harvard students easily identify the appropriate ratios of main courses to sides in a given meal, but also might even help students with eating disorders make positive changes in their eating habits.

Research has shown that diet habits students form today will be highly influential on their behavior for the rest of their lives, which underscores the urgent need to end this information vacuum. HUDS has noted that it will still display nutritional information in the dining hall kiosks and online, but what busy student could be bothered to search the Internet when trying to decide how many samosas to grab?

HUDS has also stated that it will offer forums and informational sessions to better educate students about nutrition, but offering lectures is an ineffective way to combat unhealthy eating habits. Attendees are mostly students who already know about nutrition, and if students are not encouraged to practice what they have learned on a daily basis, they will soon forget it. Instead, continually providing students with unsolicited information about what constitutes healthy meal choices will shape long-lasting dietary shifts toward health.

California passed a law last month requiring all chain restaurants with more than 20 locations to post calorie counts on menus by 2011. New York City has had a similar law in effect since the end of spring. Many Starbucks locations nationwide have already begun labeling their menus, and Yum! Brands—the owner of KFC and Pizza Hut—has announced it will put calorie counts in the overhead menus at all of its restaurants. Harvard may be able to shelter its students from much of the outside world, but since calorie counts will be a part of our lives whether we like it or not, we might as well learn how to use them.

Adam R. Gold ’11, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Adams House. His column appears on alternate Mondays.