Students: To eat better, be sure to explore your city!
Between budget constraints, practical challenges, and geographical limitations, it’s not easy for students to eat healthily. How can we turn things around and develop healthy habits? Here’s a look at a field study involving young people, local governments, and university stakeholders.
Karine Garcia, University of Montpellier; Andréa 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 parents' homes to move closer to their university or school.
While living apart from one’s parents does not necessarily mean financial independence and often happens gradually, it does require managing one’s own meals independently. This is a major challenge, with short-term implications for their academic performance and long-term implications for their health.
In an environment that makes junk food readily available, how can students manage to eat healthily? Based on interviews with students living off-campus, local professionals, and CROUS representatives, as well as field observations in a college town, here are some possible answers.
Eating Well as a Student: A Path Full of Pitfalls
Students face many challenges when it comes to eating well.
Financial pressures continue to mount, leading some of them to cut back on food spending or even turn to food assistance.
The constraints are also geographical and time-related, with the two being interconnected. In the absence of options that meet their expectations and fit their budget, students are often forced to seek out stores that are far away. The trips to the grocery store of their choice can be long (in terms of both distance and time) and require complicated logistics (carpooling, public transportation). Access to efficient public transportation becomes essential, especially for those without a car.
In addition, practical constraints (a small refrigerator, a kitchen equipped with only the bare essentials, and a lack of storage space) encourage students to limit their purchases of fresh food and to shop more frequently. Finally, there are also cognitive constraints. Some students report that they lack the knowledge to distinguish between healthy and less healthy products.
To mitigate these challenges, the ideal solution would be to have access to healthy food options nearby. However, student neighborhoods are often areas where fast-food restaurants and convenience stores—which do not carry fruits and vegetables—outnumber healthy food options. These areas are referred to as “food deserts.”
Student neighborhoods: a veritable food quagmire
Our study focused on the food options available within a 15-minute walk of the homes of the students we interviewed. First, we identified and observed the existing establishments. Second, we surveyed the students to assess their perceptions and eating behaviors.
Only university dining halls are seen as offering balanced meals at an affordable price in their immediate vicinity. However, the lines that have been growing longer since the introduction of the €1 meal for scholarship recipients are making it harder for them to access these meals.
Does eating out consist mainly of fast food (burgers, kebabs, pizza, sandwich shops, tacos, etc.) or a few traditional restaurants that are not well-suited to students’ budgets? Furthermore, few universities provide dining areas where students can bring their own homemade meals. All of these factors push students to turn to the unhealthy food options that are proliferating in their neighborhoods and around campuses.
When it comes to grocery shopping, students associate small stores with high prices. While their perceptions are largely justified in some cases, they can also be exaggerated. Observations confirm that healthy and affordable options near campuses are not easy to find. Small stores and specialty shops, such as butcher shops near student housing, are therefore consistently avoided or used only for very occasional purchases. “Big grocery runs” are done weekly or monthly at stores located farther away (discount stores or hypermarkets).
The interviews revealed that students have limited knowledge of local food systems and farmers’ markets. While they understand the basic principles, they have not figured out how to actually get there, even though there are a number of such markets in the neighborhoods studied.
Therefore, students who want to eat healthy meals on their own should make the effort and take the time to explore their neighborhood.
One way to eat well while living on your own: Explore your city!
Our study identified four distinct student profiles based on two factors: their interest in healthy eating (and the skills and knowledge they have acquired in this area) and their interest in the city (and the knowledge they have developed regarding its organization, transportation, and amenities). Each profile is associated with a primary food procurement strategy.
The strategies students adopt are, of course, linked to other factors, with their budget being the most important. In our survey, students who rely primarily on food assistance and CROUS meals seek above all to limit their expenses. For most of them, this is because they are in a precarious financial situation. For others, it is a matter of limiting food expenses so they can treat themselves to other pleasures in an area that interests them more.
Living far from home is another important factor, since only students who regularly return to their family home can benefit from parental support with food. By bringing groceries and providing airtight containers for the week, parents certainly enable their children to eat properly, but they effectively hinder their children’s independence when it comes to food.
It is therefore not easy for students living away from home to eat a healthy diet. Aside from regular food supplies from home, they must make an effort to acquire both knowledge and practical skills related to food, as well as to the city where they are studying.
How can we encourage students to eat better in the cities where they study?
Cities, which benefit from having students in their communities, must now reflect on and take action to meet their needs. Assessments of food options in student neighborhoods would use the data collected to identify specific actions to be taken with food retailers, such as raising awareness about healthy eating, providing marketing training to improve their understanding of the student demographic, and offering support to help them promote healthy choices (financial incentives, visual materials) to students.
Short supply chains and open-air markets should also be highlighted in communications to make them more visible to students. An orientation day for new students in the city could be organized to share “tips for healthy eating,” with a financial incentive—such as a discount or gift card—as an added bonus.
Students’ travel patterns in cities must also be studied to identify key transit points (tram or bus stops, etc.) and set up mobile sales points there to make it a routine part of their daily lives to buy fruits and vegetables, soups, fresh juices, or salads instead of snacking. 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 routines.
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We advise students to explore their neighborhood and city as soon as possible to find healthy eating options. City websites and apps will help them locate farmers’ 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 get familiar with local food options. The university’s student life office, as well as student organizations focused on environmental sustainability, 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’ll be able to serve as ambassadors by sharing tips on healthy eating with their peers. Ultimately, after a few months of practice, they’ll have developed crucial skills such as budget management, decision-making, organizational skills, and a touch of creativity.
Karine Garcia, Associate Professor of Management Sciences (Marketing), University of Montpellier; Andréa Gourmelen, Associate Professor (HDR) in Management Sciences (Marketing), University of Montpellier; Angélique RODHAIN, Associate Professor – HDR in Management (Marketing), University of Montpellier and Josselin Masson, Associate Professor in Marketing, University of Montpellier
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