100 signatures reached
To: Carolina Dining Services and Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz
Support Students with Eating Disorders in UNC Dining Halls: Remove Calorie Labels
Carolina Dining Services has a duty to its students to remove the display of calories. Alternatives exist, such as QR codes or having hard copy print outs available that would require an individual to request or search for the labels -- that include both calories and listed macronutrients -- and would not serve as an ever-present trigger for disordered eating. Ultimately, our dining areas should provide a safe experience for all students.
Why is this important?
Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses characterized by persistent disturbances in eating behaviors and related cognitions that severely impair physical health and psychosocial functioning (National Institute of Mental Health, 2023). They carry one of the highest mortality rates of all psychiatric illnesses (Melletin et al., 2022), and although eating disorders can occur at any age, they are particularly common in college-age individuals (National Eating Disorders Association, 2023). In terms of the impact nutrition labeling has on individuals with eating disorders, females with anorexia or bulimia nervosa tend to order significantly fewer calories with labeled menus than without (Haynos and Roberto, 2018); thereby exacerbating their illness. By blindly adopting a nutrition and calorie labeling policy in the dining halls and failing to acknowledge its untoward and detrimental effects, UNC is unintentionally doing harm to a sizeable group of vulnerable individuals with eating disorders or disordered eating.
It is unequivocal that obesity represents a public health crisis and contributes to considerable morbidity and mortality in the United States (D’Souza at al., 2018). Nonetheless, any measure implemented to address obesity must not simultaneously increase risk for or exacerbate other illnesses, such as eating disorders. In fact, calorie labeling policies often backfire leading individuals with anorexia nervosa to restrict intake more, and those with binge-eating disorder (correlated with obesity) to select more food, rather than less (Haynos and Roberto, 2018).
This is a matter that is especially important to advocate for seeing as UNC is home to one of the premier eating disorders clinical and research programs (the UNC Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders; CEED) and houses the only National Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders (NCEED). Policies set here will be models for other institutions around the country.