The Dining-Hall Diet

Colleges Try Slimmer Fare
To Fight the 'Freshman 15'

By ELIZABETH BERNSTEIN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Like a lot of college students, Jamie Peisel is ready for a hearty meal by dinner time, especially after a workout with the tennis team. So what's the dining hall at Northwestern serving up tonight? A green salad and a slice of plain chicken. "We've become rabbits," says the 18-year-old sophomore from Savannah, Ga.

After years of pampering kids with gourmet fare like shrimp paella and homemade cheesecake, this fall a growing number of colleges are putting the student body on a diet. From the downsized portions at Cornell (25% less pork loin in a serving) to a switch to low-fat cheese at Bates (yes, there is something different about the pizza), schools around the country are playing up healthy-food options. George Washington University, which has practically declared a war on fat, in January will introduce a diet menu available campuswide.

Colleges say they're responding to growing concerns that college kids are getting too flabby, and that the legendary "Freshman 15" weight gain is becoming more like the Freshman 25. Indeed, one study found college kids pack on an average of 4.2 pounds in the first 12 weeks alone, far more than others their age. In an age of Atkins diets and Pilates, many students are asking for healthy options, too. Either way, schools argue they're simply expanding the choices.

But to some critics, the schools are sending a double message -- talking up healthy food even as they expand lavish dessert buffets and all-you-can-eat pasta stations. (Along with that plain chicken, Northwestern is still offering waffles with whipped cream.) In the battle to attract students and their tuition dollars, colleges have turned food into one of their not-so-secret selling points, bringing in chefs, sushi bars and entire food courts. "It's ironic," says Ann Litt, a nutritionist in Washington, D.C., who says schools are trying to have it both ways. "Students are walking into the dining hall seeing food oozing with fat calories."

For Marcy Parmelee, it isn't always easy to stick to the lighter fare. She says she likes the made-to-order shrimp stir-fry at Boston's Northeastern University, and the cashier even has notebooks with calorie counts to help her eat healthy. There's only one hitch: the dessert table loaded with cookies, cakes and other goodies. Sometimes "you eat a brownie in line," says the 19-year-old from Binghamton, N.Y.

War on Fat

It's a far cry from the days of mystery meat and potato flakes, when colleges didn't worry too much that students were overeating. But when competition for admissions grew more intense in the '90s, many schools looked for ways to indulge kids (and persuade their parents they'd be happy students, too). Things like cushy dorms and golf courses came into play, but schools made a special push with the food -- like Rice University, which spent $31 million on new kitchens and dining rooms. In the past five years, colleges have upped their food budgets about 13%.

Now the emphasis is shifting from food to physique. Rice has started lending out pedometers, and encouraging students to log 10,000 steps a day. In Philadelphia, Temple is awarding prizes (T-shirts and water bottles) in exchange for spending time in the gym. On the way into dinner at Northeastern, students will soon be able to punch up a nutritional analysis of the menu on a flat-screen computer kiosk

Then there's George Washington University. Its campuswide diet menu goes into effect in January (including 10 sandwiches under 10 grams of fat), with the school publicizing where to find the healthiest items served on campus each day. Coming up: a town-hall meeting focusing on nutrition, complete with an "Iron Chef"-style cook-off. Weight gain is "always a concern," says Amelia Powell, a dining official.

Some students say the new push is going in the right direction. After borrowing one of the school's pedometers, Rice sophomore Amanda Lopez was surprised to learn she wasn't even clocking half of the recommended walking distance some days. Now she's walking to class instead of taking the campus shuttle and has given up the elevator in her dorm to walk up the eight flights instead. "I had no excuse," she says.

Still, some experts worry it's risky to even hint to stressed-out college kids that they might be too fat, and eating disorders remain a big issue on campus. And while the college experience is supposed to be about becoming more independent, nudging kids about their eating habits can come across as somewhat paternal. Holy Cross says it specifically skips any talk about weight loss and focuses on "healthy" eating. Calorie counts and other measures are "a constant reminder to diet, so we stay away from that," says Linda Nardella, director of dining at the Worcester, Mass., college.

But it may turn out to be smart business. With more off-campus restaurants eating up students' food budgets -- often with "heart-healthy" options -- colleges are worried about losing revenue. Schools say diet meals can help a kitchen's bottom line: When food-service operator Aramark recently opened a Salad Garden station at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, weekly salad sales doubled, and Brandeis saw a $2,500-a-week jump in fish sales when they added salmon to a new lineup of meals under 500 calories.

Brandeis student Megan Rook-Koepsel says she's working to slim down after gaining almost seven pounds her freshman year. But so far, she's been skipping the school's new diet-food station and the low-cal desserts created by a newly hired pastry chef. "The lines are too long," she says.

Weight List

Across the country, schools and colleges are putting healthier options on their menus. Here is a sampling: