Does eating more frequently at the university cafeteria promote healthier and more environmentally friendly diets in French students? A cross-sectional study on the association between university catering attendance and food choices

As public institutions, French university cafeterias have the potential to favour student well-being and academic performance by offering affordable, high-quality meals. However, limited data exists on students' actual food choices in this context. This study aimed to investigate the role of university catering in student diets, focusing on nutritional quality and environmental impact. 253 students who regularly ate at a large university cafeteria in Dijon took pictures of their meal trays each time they ate there during three months. They also completed online questionnaires assessing their sociodemographic characteristics, overall diet using a 125-item food frequency questionnaire and attendance at university catering. The nutritional quality (adherence to French recommendations, sPNNS-GS2 score) and environmental impact (greenhouse gas emissions, kg eCO2) of students' food choices at the university cafeteria and of their overall diets were calculated for a standard 2000 kcal intake. The results indicated significant potential for improving the nutritional quality and environmental impact of both the students' food choices at the university cafeteria and of their overall diets. While frequent attendance at university catering was associated with healthier food choices (β=0.15, p=0.027) this did not translate into a broader improvement in the overall nutritional quality of students' diets (β=0.09, p=0.222). No associations were found between attendance at university catering with neither environmental impact of food choices (β=0.03, p=0.170) nor of overall diets (β=0.05, p=0.291). These findings suggest that although university catering has the potential to promote healthier and more sustainable eating habits, its full potential has yet to be realised.