Academia, Bizarre, Society

Picking Between Anorexic and Obese Students at Harvard: School Removes Calorie Counters From Dining Halls

Harvard University appears to have made a curious choice in its dining halls. Harvard University Dining Services has been supplying index cards with nutritional information for people concerned about fat and calorie content — part of a national trend to give more information to consumers. It has now, however, pulled the cards after students and parents complained that it would worsen eating disorders like anorexia nervosa.

A spokesperson stated: “The feeling was that for people who have eating disorders or who struggle with issues around the literal value of food, the emphasis on nutrition information does not always lead people to eat in a healthy manner.” Yet, isn’t the point to give people information to make their own decisions? It seems incredibly paternalistic for Harvard to decide that people would not use information correctly on what they eat.

Now, students and faculty will have to go to a kiosk or the internet for the information, which seems unlikely.

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4 thoughts on “Picking Between Anorexic and Obese Students at Harvard: School Removes Calorie Counters From Dining Halls”

  1. I like the snarky comments of course, but have to agree with Harvard on this one. Alot of new info has come out about food. Remember the food pyramid? It’s a stone cold killer. No-fat phood? Same thing. Truthfully you can eat a largely meat and animal fat diet, few veggies, and live a very long time. Ask some of the remote tribes of Mongolia about that!

    As we don’t live in remote areas of Mongolia while going to the Harvard cafeteria line it makes sense to keep food as healthy as possible and avoid all the calorie crap which does feed into eating disorders. There are MANY young women and some young men with these problems. There is a complete fixation on calorie counting, it doesn’t help and it does hurt so why not get rid of it? Below is a link to a militant fat person website.

    http://www.fatso.com/
    .

  2. Personally, I always wear blinders when I eat at institutional cafeterias. It has nothing to do with the nutritional value postings, I just don’t like to see the food!

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