AN EXERCISE IN ACTIVE LEARNING: IDENTIFYING HEALTHY FOOD OPTIONS ON A HISTORICALLY BLACK COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY CAMPUS USING THE TRAFFIC LIGHT SYSTEM

Background:
One focus of Healthy People 2015-2020 is workplace wellness, including college campuses. As children age, more food choices are made outside of the home away from parental influence, which may pose significant challenges to healthy eating. Students are exposed to an environment with unhealthy food choices making healthy food decisions difficult. Nutrition labels are often confusing and difficult to understand. Thus, students are more likely to abandon the use of a system that is not simple and clear. Traffic Light System (TLS) uses traffic-light colors to interpret for the consumer if the amounts of specific nutrients found in the product are “high”, medium”, or “low”. The purpose of this study was to engage undergraduate food and nutritional sciences students to analyze menus from college dining facilities and to create a handout of healthy menu options in dining facilities on a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) using a modified TLS.

Methods:
Junior and senior level food and nutritional sciences students participated in an active learning exercise in the spring of 2017. The students accessed nutritional information from the campus dining facility. The students then created a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to analyze the menus for macronutrient composition (total energy, total fat, saturated fat, protein, carbohydrate, fiber and sodium). The percent energy contributed by the macronutrients was then calculated. The students then colored coded the menu items from the six retail-dining facilities based on percentage of energy from total fat (green <30%; amber 30-40%; red <40%) using a modified TLS.

Results:
From the six dining facilities: 22.75% of menu items were “green” (primarily condiments), 9% “amber and 69% “red”. Due to lack of “green” menu items, we increased the criteria to < 35% kcal total fat to include on an easy to read handout.

Conclusion:
Food and nutritional sciences’ students were able to engage in an active learning exercise that developed nutritional computation skills as well as computer skills. The students found healthy options are available on campus at each of the dining facilities; however most students, faculty and staff may not be aware. The handout the students have created is used for educating student athletes during team nutrition meetings, health fairs as handouts and during on campus conferences as part of nutrition education. Future studies will focus how to continue to engage in active or experiential learning while increasing promotion of healthy choices on and off campus for an HBCU community.