Nutrition stats easier to find, following California trend

Following a nationwide push to publicize calorie counts and trans fats amounts in food, USC has begun work on an initiative to revamp campus nutrition information.

This move comes after Harvard University removed nutrition data from campus cafeterias last month, citing concerns that the information encouraged eating disorders.

USC, however, is going in the opposite direction.

“We aren’t the food police,” said Mark Ewalt, director of operations for TrojanServices. “Our goal is just to give people all the information they need to make an informed, responsible, personal decision.”

USC’s Wellness Committee, experts on nutrition and campus employees are finding a way to present nutrition facts in an accessible and digestible way.

“We could just dump a bunch of numbers into a long list online, but who would look at that?” Ewalt said. “We want to find some sort of shorthand to immediately tell people, ‘This is a healthy choice. This isn’t.’”

Planning began in earnest only recently, after dining facilities received multiple suggestions about reforming the way nutrition information was presented, and the initiative is still in the early design phases. Ewalt said the updated approach will not hit campus dining until January and will not be fully complete until May.

But so far, the committee has set two goals: to indicate healthy choices on campus menus through a logo or a symbol and to provide information on what healthy means, said nutritionist and USC dietician and nutritionist Patrice Barber said.

The “healthy” symbol will appear everywhere students have a healthy option, whether it’s a meal at Parkside or a health class in the Lyon Center. Barber said this will help students make better choices about everything they eat and do.

“When you have all the nutrition information laid out in front of you, you know if you’re choosing something indulgent,” she said.

Although the committee is still in the discussion phase, Ewalt hopes the TrojanHospitality website will have some nutritional information from the initiative posted by the end of November.

Ewalt said the committee has divided the initiative into three phases: exploration, when group members will discuss and explore goals for the project; data collection, when employees will gather all necessary information; and execution, when the plan will go into effect.

“The easier you make it to access nutrition information, the easier it is for people to make informed choices,” said Donna Spruijt-Metz, an assistant professor of research at the Institute for Prevention Research and an expert in diet and body image.

Harvard decided against showing nutritional facts of foods in late September, when the university’s dining services removed all nutritional index cards from cafeteria foods, saying the presence of the information encouraged or led to eating disorders.

Information about calories, serving size, grams of fat and grams of carbohydrates is now only available online or in dining hall kiosks, according to the university’s dining services blog.

“Individuals [with eating disorders] ... place an undue emphasis on calories ... making their placement over every food item a real challenge,” wrote Ted A. Mayer, executive director of Harvard’s dining services, on the Dining Services blog.

USC‘s staff says there’s little chance a plan such as Harvard’s would go into effect in California, where nutrition transparency laws are far more common. Harvard representatives declined to comment.

“How can they back up this seemingly absurd claim?” Spruijt-Metz said. “If the presence of nutrition information didn’t make a positive difference, no one would publish it. So they must have been under immense pressure.”

USC’s approach to nutrition labeling mirrors new California laws that are beginning to emerge. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed SB 1420 on Sept. 30, a bill that will require chain restaurants to display calorie counts on menus and menu boards.

“This being Southern California and Los Angeles ... this plan is a natural fit,” Ewalt said. “California is a unique place, and I think what we’re doing on campus aligns with what the people of California want.”

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