The food environment of students on a financial assistance programme at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein

Abstract

The research study was undertaken to determine the food that students on the financial assistance program at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, could buy on campus. Students on this program can buy food from six food outlets on campus from their daily allowance. The types of foods sold were mostly sugar-containing products. The availability of healthy food choices should be promoted in an environment where food assistance programs are offered to students. Objectives: Enrolment at institutions of higher learning is associated not only with poor eating habits, but also food insecurity. This cross-sectional descriptive study aimed to determine the food environment for students on the financial assistance programme at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein. Study population and sample: Six food outlets providing food for students on the food assistance programme. Methods: All food items sold at the specified outlets were recorded using a store audit form. Results: The food outlets allocated to the recipients were two take-away food outlets, three cafeterias and one tuck shop. Of the food items sold at these outlets, only 1% was classified as dairy. Sugar-containing products represented 29.2% of the food items sold, followed by starches (19.3%) and protein-containing foods (18.6%). Conclusion:The quality and diversity of foods available on campuses should be considered when implementing food assistance programs.

Prevalence of health risk behaviours related to non-communicable diseases amongst South African university students: a systematic review

“…40 The food environment of South African universities should also be assessed. 41 Specifically, students have claimed that fruits and vegetables are not easily available on campus. 41 , 42 Based on past successful interventions amongst South African youth, 43 campaigns should be implemented across universities.…”

Assessing the Healthfulness of University Food Environments: A Systematic Review of Methods and Tools

“…A summary of the included study characteristics, including assessment type, focus, and scope, is shown in Table 1. Eighteen studies were conducted in the United States [6][7][8][9][10]13,17,18,24,[30][31][32][33][34][38][39][40][41], four in Australia [15,28,42,43], three in Brazil [14,27,44], two in Canada [12,45], and one in Egypt [46], Ghana [47], Italy [48], Lebanon [49], New Zealand [50], Norway [51], Spain [11], South Africa [52], and United Arab Emirates [29]. Thirteen studies compared multiple higher education institutions [6][7][8][9]13,15,28,29,38,43,[49]…”

“…Twenty-one studies reported results of an institutional-level audit: eight audited campus eateries [6,7,12,14,27,38,44,52], four examined vending machines [11,13,17,29], one reviewed food stores [8], and eight had a combination of outlet types [10,15,28,41,42,[45][46][47]. Two studies detailed the changes to a university food environment over time [12,27], whereas all other studies described the food environment at one time point.…”

Students' conceptualizations of student hunger

“…Investigations into the types of food that students self-reportedly eat have found that students eat food of low nutritional quality (Kassier and Veldman 2013;Munro et al 2013;Steenkamp et al 2016). While this could be attributed to a lack of knowledge about nutrition (Ndlovu 2017), the issue is exacerbated by limited access to healthy food at university campuses (Meko and Jordaan 2016).…”