Students: to eat better, consider exploring your city!
Between budget constraints, material constraints, and geographical constraints, it is not easy for students to eat healthily. How can we change the situation and adopt good habits? A look back at a field survey of young people, local authorities, and stakeholders in the academic world.
Karine Garcia, University of Montpellier; Andrea Gourmelen, University of Montpellier; Angélique RODHAIN, University of Montpellier and Josselin Masson, University of Montpellier
At the start of each academic year, many students leave their family homes to move closer to their university or school.
While moving out does not necessarily go hand in hand with financial independence and is a gradual process, it does require managing one's own food supply independently. This is a major challenge, with a short-term impact on academic performance and a longer-term impact on health.
In an environment that promotes access to junk food, how can students manage to eat healthily? Based on interviews with students living away from home, local professionals, and the CROUS (Regional Center for University and School Works), as well as field observations in a student town, here are some answers.
Eating well as a student: a path fraught with pitfalls
Students face many constraints when it comes to eating well.
Financial difficulties continue to grow, leading some of them to reduce food expenditure or even resort to food aid.
Constraints are also geographical and temporal, with the two being linked. In the absence of an offering that meets their expectations and budget, students are often forced to seek out stores that are far away. The journeys to reach the food store of their choice can be long (in terms of distance and time) and require complicated arrangements (carpooling, public transportation). Access to efficient public transportation becomes essential, especially for those without a vehicle.
In addition, material constraints (small refrigerators, kitchens reduced to the bare minimum, lack of storage space) encourage students to limit their purchases of fresh food and increase the frequency of their shopping trips. Finally, there are also cognitive constraints. Some students say they lack the knowledge to distinguish between healthy and less healthy products.
To limit these constraints, the ideal solution would be to have a range of healthy products available nearby. However, student neighborhoods are often located in areas where fast food outlets and convenience stores selling food items other than fruit and vegetables outnumber healthy options. This phenomenon is referred to as a food swamp.
Student neighborhoods, a food wasteland
Our study focused on the food options available within a 15-minute walk of the homes of the students interviewed. We identified and observed existing establishments. We also surveyed the students to assess their perceptions and eating habits.
Only university restaurants are perceived as offering balanced meals at an affordable price in their immediate environment. However, the queues that have been growing since the introduction of the €1 meal for scholarship holders are making access more difficult.
Is eating out mainly limited to fast food (burgers, kebabs, pizza, sandwiches, tacos, etc.) or a few more traditional restaurants that are not really suited to students' budgets? In addition, few universities offer rooms where students can bring their own home-cooked meals. All these factors push them towards the unhealthy food options that are increasingly available in their neighborhoods and around universities.
When it comes to shopping, students associate small stores with high prices. While in some cases their perceptions are largely justified, they can also be exaggerated. Observations confirm that healthy and affordable alternatives around campuses are not easy to find. Small stores and specialty shops such as butcher shops near student residences are therefore systematically avoided or reserved for very occasional shopping trips. "Big shopping trips" are made weekly or monthly at stores that are further away (discount stores or hypermarkets).
The interviews revealed that students were unfamiliar with short supply chains and open-air markets. Although they were aware of the principles behind them, they did not know how to actually get there, even though there are a number of such markets in the neighborhoods studied.
Therefore, students who want to eat healthily and independently must make the effort and take the time to explore their neighborhood.
To eat well while being independent, there's one solution: explore your city!
Our study identified four different student profiles based on two aspects: interest in healthy eating (and the skills and knowledge they have acquired in this area) and interest in the city (and the knowledge they have developed in terms of organization, transportation, and offerings). Each profile is associated with a primary food supply strategy.
The strategies implemented are, of course, linked to other factors, with student budgets being a key consideration. In our survey, students who rely mainly on food aid and CROUS meals seek above all to limit their expenses. For most of them, this is because they are living in precarious circumstances. For others, it is a question of limiting food expenses in order to indulge in other pleasures in an area that interests them more.
Parental distance is another important factor, as only students who regularly return home can benefit from parental provisioning. By bringing groceries and providing airtight containers for the week, parents certainly enable their offspring to eat properly, but in fact hinder their food autonomy.
It is therefore not easy for students living away from home to access healthy food. Apart from regular supplies from their families, they have to make an effort to acquire knowledge and skills related to food, but also to the city where they are studying.
How can we get students to eat better in their college towns?
Cities, which benefit from the presence of students in their area, must now reflect and take action to meet their needs. Assessments of the food supply in student neighborhoods would enable the data collected to be used to target actions to be carried out with food business managers, such as raising awareness of healthy eating, marketing training to improve their knowledge of the student target audience, and support to help them promote healthy choices (financial incentives, visual aids) to students.
Short supply chains and outdoor markets should also be promoted to raise awareness among students. A welcome day for new students in the city could be organized to share tips on healthy eating, with the added incentive of financial support in the form of discounts or vouchers.
The routes taken by students in cities must also be studied to identify the main transit points (tram or bus stops, etc.) and set up mobile sales points there to encourage the routine purchase of fruit and vegetables, soups, fresh juices, or salads instead of snacks. Beyond that, the overall appeal of student neighborhoods must also be rethought so that food shopping can be done easily and enjoyably as part of their daily commute.
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We advise students to explore their neighborhood and city as soon as possible to identify healthy food options. City websites and apps will help them locate markets, organic grocery stores, and local events related to healthy eating. The city's Instagram page should also be full of information to help them familiarize themselves with the food options available. The university's student life office and associations related to ecological transition are also important resources for learning about support available for adopting a healthy and affordable diet.
Finally, once some of them have become completely independent, they can act as ambassadors by sharing tips on healthy eating with their classmates. After a few months of training, they will have developed crucial skills such as budget management, decision-making, organizational skills, and a touch of creativity.
Karine Garcia, Associate Professor in Management Sciences (Marketing), University of Montpellier; Andréa Gourmelen, Senior Lecturer in Management Sciences (Marketing), University of Montpellier; Angélique RODHAIN, Senior Lecturer – HDR in Management (Marketing), University of Montpellier and Josselin Masson, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, University of Montpellier
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