November 11, 2012

In the Cafeteria and Beyond, Colleges Take On Obesity

Deciding to teach healthful living is easy; actually doing so can raise questions about intrusiveness

With More Overweight Students, Colleges Question How to Help 2

Jason Greene for The Chronicle

Kaitlin Voellinger, a junior at Binghamton U., visits the NourishU station nearly every day because it offers fresh vegetables, proteins, and grains. She writes about healthful eating and offers recipes on her blog, Bowl Half Full.

By Libby Sander

College students are a generally healthy lot. But as they grow heavier each year, reflecting the national rise in obesity rates, campus officials are trying to promote healthier habits—and, they hope, mitigate the impact of a sobering trend.

More than one-third of college students have a body-mass index, the main measurement for obesity, that classifies them as overweight or obese, according to the American College Health Association. And childhood-obesity rates keep going