Establishing Healthy Food Options At WSU:

A Recommendation Report
Prepared for: Board of Regents,
Division of Student Affairs
Washington State University
Prepared by: Sierra Sharp
Colton Rockwell
Yiwen Liu
April 6th, 2016

Date: April 6th, 2016

To:
Board of Regents
Division of Student Affairs
Washington State University
From: Sierra Sharp
Colton Rockwell
Yiwen Liu
Subject: Recommendation Report for Healthy Options at WSU
Attached is the report for our study, Establishing Healthy Food Options
at WSU: A Recommendation Report. We completed the tasks
described in our proposal, familiarizing ourselves with the effects
unhealthy food and diets have on students, researching student
opinions by conducting a survey, finding alternatives that WSU could
effectively use, and researching how other schools have implemented
healthier options.
To perform these tasks, we used primary and secondary research. To
do this we used surveys, literature, articles, and public school
information. We then analyzed our data and completed a
recommendation report.
Our findings suggest that if Washington State University adopts
healthier food options on campus, many students and the overall
community at WSU would improve immensely. If WSU decides to adopt
this better way of providing meals to students, 59.09% of students
have stated that they would pay a slight increase in prices of food for
healthier options. The CUB at WSU would be a perfect way to provide
and promote healthier food considering the size and the amount of
places that could even adopt some of these healthier options because
they are WSU ran food establishments. We have also found that
current resources WSU holds, such as farms and greenhouses could
produce and provide healthier food options on campus.
On the basis of these findings, we recommend that WSU proceed with
creating the option of healthier food options at WSU as well as with the
study of the costs and benefits of adopting healthier food options.

We appreciate you for allowing us to jump-start this initial research and

we would look forward to working with you on other portions of this
study. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please
contact Sierra Sharp at sierra.sharp@wsu.edu or at 360-510-6094.

Table of Contents
Executive
Summary
4
Introduction
5
Research
Methods
...7
Results
....10
Conclusions
.........13
Recommendations
..14
References
15
Appendices.

........ 16

Executive Summary
A group of students from English 402 class have been formally invited
to research the study of providing healthier food options on campus for
students at WSU.
Currently, WSU only offers a small amount of healthy food options on
campus. Because of increasing physical and mental risk that can result
from unhealthy eating, we have researched and suggested offering
healthy food on campus. WSU should implement and provide more
options for students.
We have researched student opinions, other school implementations,
WSU resources for providing these foods, and how unhealthy food
affects students. Will have then used these findings to create a
recommendation report.
To perform this research, we have used primary and secondary
research, including surveys, articles, and public school information to
familiarize ourselves with why healthy options are needed and how we
can implement them.
We found that students would love the chance to have healthier
options on campus and in addition to the adoption of healthier food,
not only will students benefit but staff and the overall WSU community
would reap the benefits as well. Further we found that 72.73% of
students would prefer healthier options on campus and 59.09% of
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these students would be willing to pay a slight increase in price for this
option. The infrastructure and resources we have at WSU are able to
uphold healthier options at the CUB and other places on campus.
On the basis of these conclusions, we recommend that WSU continue
to research healthier options on campus, costs and the benefits of
implementing this change.

Introduction
A group of students from English 402 class have been formally invited
to research the study of providing healthier food options on campus for
students at WSU.
Currently, WSU is only offering a select amount of food but it is food
that is not meeting healthy based needs for students. Students are
being drastically affected by WSUs choice to only offer these highly
unhealthy options. If WSU could provide these possibilities to students,
we would see a huge change in students. Research has shown that
college students are greatly affected by the unhealthy diet colleges
have provided to students. It has affected test scores, attendance,
weight gain and nutritional deficiencies. If Washington State University
helped promote healthier meals and snacks we could see a large
improvement in the overall academics, self-image and food
insecurities. We have used primary and secondary research to help
provide resources for this research.
Specifically, the following four questions were asked to perform the
research needed:
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1. How does unhealthy eating affect overall health, mental

and physical and what would be the outcome of healthier options
on campus?
2. Would students prefer, benefit, and enjoy healthier food
choices on campus?
3. How could WSU use current or easily attained resources to
provide efficient food products for WSU campus?
4. Are there other college campuses that have implemented
certain foods, techniques, classes etc. that have been successful
that we could use for ideas and problem solving for bringing
healthier options to campus?
Understanding these four main questions made it possible to consider
how and why we should proceed with the study of bringing healthy
food options to WSU campus. One of the main points of research was
conducting a student survey. If students did not feel the need for
healthier options on campus then this study would be hard to hold up
towards The Board of Regents and Division of Student Affairs. WSU
would also need to know how to implement and find resources to fund,
manage and provide for this implementation. For these reasons, we
wanted to present our findings and recommend whether the university
should proceed with providing healthier options on WSU campus if they
are able to budget and use current resources to do so.
First, we sought to understand the basics of how unhealthy diets affect
students. With this information, we were able to create a survey that
better our knowledge about how students feel their diets are, what
kind of food they would prefer on campus and what they feel would
provide a diet that they feel is needed for them to be considered
healthy.
We found that students would love the chance to have healthier
options on campus and in addition to the adoption of healthier food,
not only will students benefit but staff and the overall WSU community
would reap the benefits as well. Further we found that 72.73% of
students would prefer healthier options on campus and 59.09% of
these students would be willing to pay a slight increase in price for this
option. The infrastructure and resources we have at WSU are able to
uphold healthier options at the CUB and other places on campus.
On the basis of these conclusions, we recommend that WSU continue
to research healthier options on campus, costs and the benefits of
implementing this change.
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In the following sections, we provide additional details about our

research methods, the results we obtained, the conclusions we drew
from the results obtained and our recommendation.

Research Methods
To acquire the information requested for The Board of Regents, we
broke the project into five tasks:
1. Acquire a basic understanding of how unhealthy diets
affect students physically and mentally
2. Conduct a survey to gather students opinions
3. How could WSU use current resources to provide healthier
options for WSU campus
4. How other schools have implemented healthy resources for
their students and campus
5. Analyze the data and create a recommendation report

Task 1: Acquiring a basic understanding of healthy and unhealthy effects on students

Many students eat on campus partly because of time crunches and partly because of
socialization. These unhealthy habits can be due to the choices offered to students on
campus. Researchers at Auburn University followed 131 students over their 4 years of
college and showed that the overall weight gain was at 18% when they first started to
31% by the time of graduation. (OConner, 2012) Along with weight gain, students are
struggling to get the suggested amount of servings of fruits, vegetables and other
important vitamins. This not only shows that students are missing the important items in
their diet but according to a study done by Oregon State University, researchers showed
that students sometimes dont even have one serving of fruit or vegetables a day. This can
cause immune deficiencies and other health defects. (Cardinal, 2011)
Not only is the overall health of students a problem but this is also affecting academics.
According to the website Livestrong.com, eating healthy every day will improve your test
scores, overall cognitive thinking, focus and attendance. (Clarke, 2011) The author in this
reference is productively making the same point that led me to choosing this research
topic. People in all walks of life need to eat healthier and more balanced meals, especially
with the recent obesity epidemic in the United States of America. With the knowledge
that people in general are eating poorly, it led me to realize that college students are some
of the worst offenders of making unhealthy choices. This may not be completely their
fault since most of the available meals to poor, time-crunched students are inherently bad
for their overall health.
A quote from medical daily shows how astonishing a college diet can affect students;
According to the American College Health Association, the percentage of overweight and
American college students has risen from 27.4 percent in fall 2006 to 29.2 percent in fall
2011. Unhealthy eating habits, sedentary lifestyles, and food insecurities have contributed
to this high statistic. Colleges and universities along with health officials should make
greater efforts in addressing the obesity epidemic and its detrimental health effects.
(Lizette Borreli) Not only has the percentage of overweight college students risen but the
so has the expected health conditions that follow along with these unhealthy habits.
According to many researchers, a common thing call food insecure which determines
your access to nutritious and safe food is very limited to college students. According to
the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 59% of students are food insecure. Food
insecure students are also more likely to have lower cumulative GPAs than their food
secure peers. (Megan M. Patton-Lopez)
Task 2: Research student opinions
I wanted to know if students mutually agreed with some of my secondary research so I
conducted a survey for WSU students that eat at least one meal on campus a week. This
research revealed some astonishing results that prove that even students believe they are
living life pretty unhealthy. One question I asked what if students were eating at least 5
servings of fruits and vegetables a day, which is the recommended amount for a healthy
diet, 59.09% admitted to rarely ever eating that many servings. Other questions that I
asked also revealed that students were not meeting the needs for healthy diets.
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Along with student opinions on their own diets, I also asked if students would enjoy
overall healthier options offered at the CUB; 72.73% said they would prefer if WSU
campus would provide healthy options and 68.18% would like these options to include
fresh fruit, vegetables and organic snacks and 31.82% would like to incorporate a salad
bar. In task three, I will talk about how WSU could incorporate these options efficiently.
Task 3: How could WSU use current resources to provide healthier
options for WSU campus
An effective cheap way to provide these healthy options to students, or at least account
for some of the food supply could be starting a WSU garden strictly used for supplying
the Compton Union Building. The Atrium Caf, also on campus, has students make all
the food sold homemade. By doing this, Atrium Caf is saving labor costs and also is
using a strict amount of homemade products.
We currently have four greenhouses on campus that are used for research labs. One of
these greenhouses is Eastlick Plant Growth Chamber that is available at a monthly charge
to use. Although the growth chambers are not available every month, I believe that this
will make it cost effective for the school. Each unit in the Eastlick Plant Growth Chamber
ranges from $20-$120 and includes six chambers available to rent.
Washington State University also owns multiple farms and five of these could be used to
help produce food for healthy organic options. One of these farms known as R.B Tukey
Horticulture Orchard sells its excess food not used for research and teaching to the
public. If we could use this excess food and sell it cheaply to dining services, the WSU
community would be able to benefit from the profit and the students would benefit from
the healthier, organic food. (CAHNRS, 2016)
Task 4: How other schools have implemented healthy resources for their
students and campus
Yale has made it their mission to provide fresh and healthy food to students. This includes
Yale has to farms that include berries, herbs, vegetables and many more things that help
provide to dining services. The sustainable food program at Yale is made possible by
providing students with two farms that allow for environmental and food science and
research. They also provide internships, which allows students to become more involved
with the program. Yale incorporates the food that is grown on their two farms in their
university dining halls. (Mark Bomford)
The University of Georgia also provides to their students but in different ways. They have
dedicated themselves to making sure diet needs are met not only to students who want to
eat healthier but to student that have special dietary needs such at gluten free and vegan
options. They label their food items on campus with a small icon, one of them includes an
icon that indicates the item has less than 10% of calories from saturated fat, less than 0.5
grams of trans fat and less than 480 mg of sodium. (University of Georgia, 2016)
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Not only is the University of Georgia voted the in the top five schools for healthiest food
options they also provide a hotline for students to contact nutrition counselors that
provide assistance to health questions concerning diets and exercise. They also provide
classes that teach you how to eat healthy, healthy eating on the go and much more.
(University of Georgia, 2016) Although I do not know their budget and how much they
charge for each item, WSU has a budget of $1,294,660 designated to the Compton Union
Building from 2015-2017. Although this is not strictly designated to food services, we
could use some of this money to incorporate a healthier environment for students.
(Washington State University)
Task 5: Analyze the data and create a recommendation report
We have drafted this report in order to finalize and communicate our
recommendation report. We incorporated our primary and secondary
research and will turn this final report in.

Results
In this section, we will present the results of our research. For each
task that we completed, we will elaborate on the important
information.
Task 1: Acquiring a basic understanding of healthy and unhealthy effects on students
By promoting healthy diets at WSU, students at WSU will be able to improve their
academics, prevent future health problems and physical problems. The secondary and
primary research that was performed for this research project has allowed us to determine
what questions needed to be answered and how we would answer those questions.
This research overall determined that unhealthy diets and food insecurities are affecting
students abilities to learn, attend and focus in class and is affecting academics like test
scores. If we can improve diets and promote healthier eating, WSU will see a drastic
change in academics and student happiness. This can be a great change for not only
students but also faculty and the WSU community.
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Task 2: Research student opinions

Students were asked to take a ten question survey that could help us determine if
changing food options on campus are worth the change and if they would be important to
students. If students did not see a need for change then our research would have been less
important because the reason we wanted to research this change is for the students. We
determined that students find that this change is needed and students are more than
willing to participate in this change. From this survey, we determined that most students
are food insecure. Food insecurity is when students do not have easy access to healthy
options. Most students at WSU are not able to afford or have easy access to these options
and WSU should make this easier for everyone.
Questions:
1. Do you attend Washington State University
2. Do you eat on campus?
3. How often do you eat on campus?
4. On a daily basis, do you eat the recommended 5 servings of
fruit and
vegetables?
5. How much do you typically spend on food when you eat out or
on campus?
6. When purchasing food do you read the nutritional value?
7. Would you enjoy healthier options on campus?
8. Would you be willing to spend extra money on healthy food?
9. What does eating healthy mean to you
10. What would you prefer to find on campus
The following are some important results that were conveyed from this survey:
90.91% of the student that we surveyed attend WSU
63.64% of the students that we surveyed eat food on campus
77.27% of the students that eat on campus, eat on campus 1-2 times a
week
Only 9.09% of students we surveyed eat the recommended amount of
fruits and vegetables
77.27% of the students we surveyed spend 5-10$ when purchasing food
40.91% of the students we surveyed never check the label for the
nutritional value of the food that they were eating
Of the students that we surveyed 82.73% would enjoy healthier food
options on campus
59.09% of the students surveyed said they would only buy healthier food
if there was only a slight price increase
81.82% of the students that we surveyed said that a healthy diet is a diet
that is well balanced
61.18% of the students would like more fresh snack to purchase on
campus

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Task 3: How could WSU use current resources to provide

healthier options for WSU campus
By implementing a garden strictly for campus, WSU would increase the
amount of healthy food products distributed to students as well as
save money by not importing as much food onto the campus due to
the fact that is already being grown here on campus.
When implementing the greenhouses into the process of making the
options of food more healthy, there will be more than just the ability to
grow our own healthy food. This will create a new area for
employment, the jobs that would become available are jobs like garden
keepers and people that would prepare the food. Although WSU would
increase expenses with the rent due for these facilities and the pay to
new employees, the university would no longer have to pay for the
importing of fruits and vegetables.
WSU could partner with farms like R.B Tukey Horticulture Orchard, the college
could separate itself from the purchasing of outside fruits and vegetables, which affects
the school in many positive ways. First off, the university will save money, be able to
contribute to a local company, and know where the products are coming from.
Task 4: How other schools have implemented healthy resources
for their students and campus
By researching other schools and how they have implemented certain
techniques that not only have improved their campus but have
improved their students overall way of life. Both schools that we
researched including Yale and University of Georgia have implemented
classes, information, gardens and much more that have made their
campuses the healthiest in the nation. WSU could implement and use
them as an example for what we can do for our campus. These
changes are very important and can positively affect many lives.

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Conclusion
Overall we believe that with the information we have gathered so far we can conclude
that we can, as the WSU community can easily provide healthier options to students on
campus. With the statistics to prove the emotional and physical effects that bad eating has
on students and the resources WSU has an agricultural school and campus, we should
efficiently and effectively be able to provide to our students that kind of food they
deserve. Not only does Megan Paton-Lopez describe food options provided to the
students at college much like the food at WSU unhealthy, they are causing food
insecurities as well. This is the main source for the growing gain weight in college
students and we need to do everything we can to prevent this from going any
further.
After researching the study of providing healthier food options on
campus for students at WSU, we notice that the food health problem is
becoming more and more serious.
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It takes the big impact on college students college lives. Not only does
it related to students health, but it will also effect on students
academics. According to the research, the unhealthier food college
students eat, the lower GPA they get.
We also collected some opinions, whether they support our research or
not, from the students in WSU. Most of the students who are
interviewed by us realize their living life are pretty unhealthy. They
prefer that the CUB can offer healthier food.
According to the demands of students, we tried to find the solution of
the problem within the scope of colleges ability. We found a solution to
provide healthier campus at WSU by using four greenhouses in WSU
effectively. These greenhouses were built for research labs. If they can
sell the food to dining service with a lower price, it will be an effective
and cheap way to solve the health problem base on WSU current
resources. Its healthy and organic.
This solution isnt our imagination. Its a mature program which has
already been adopted by many other famous colleges.

Recommendation
We recommend that WSU implement the changes that are necessary in
order to bring healthier foods to the WSU campus. Students, that enjoy
healthy food and students that do not enjoy healthy food would both
benefit from this change because it would at least slightly increase
every student's mental and physical health here at WSU. If these
changes are not implemented we will continue to see the unhealthy
trends of students and the continuation of unhealthy diets. With the
rising amount of overweight and obese college students, this change
needs to happen. With the willingness of the students and the need for
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this change, there is no question regarding whether or not this change

should be made here at WSU.

References:
Borreli, Lizzete. "Why 59% Of College Students May Suffer From Malnutrition."
Medical Daily. Medical Daily, 28 Jan. 2014. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.
Cardinal, Brad. "News and Research Communications." Study: College Students Not
Eating Enough Fruits and Veggies. Oregon State University, 17 Aug. 2011. Web. 21 Feb.
2016.
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Clarke, Nancy. "How Does Eating Healthy Affect Your Grades?" LIVESTRONG.COM.
LIVESTRONG.COM, 02 Aug. 2011. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.
O'Connor, Amy. "70% of Students Gain Weight During College: Study." Health News /
Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health. Health.com, 26 Sept. 2012. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.
Radcliffe, Shawn. "Nearly 60 Percent of College Students Are 'Food Insecure'"
Healthlines RSS News. Healthline, 30 Jan. 2014. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.
"University of Georgia Food Services." Nutrition. University of Georgia, n.d. Web. 22
Feb. 2016.
This was not an article, but a website for University of Georgias healthy
implementations that they have brought to campus. They have not only labeled certain
nutritional facts but are also providing classes that talk about healthy eating, exercising,
cooking and how to shop on a budget.
"Washington State University." Farms. Washington State University, 2016. Web. 28 Feb.
2016.

Appendix A: Student Survey 1

This is a survey that was conducted and distributed to students online.
Twenty two students responded and following is the results. The
percentages to these questions indicate how many students selected that answer.
Survey of Diets at WSU
Directions: We are asking you to participate in this study because you
are currently enrolled as a college student. Thank you for taking the
time to participate in this study, theses results help us a lot.
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1. Do you attend Washington State University

Yes: 90.91%
No: 9.09%
2. Do you eat on campus?
Yes: 63.64%
No: 0%
Rarely: 36.36%
3. How often do you eat on campus?
1-2 days a week: 77.27%
3-4 days a week: 9.09%
5-7 days a week: 13.64%
4. On a daily basis, do you eat the recommended 5 servings of
fruit and
vegetables?
Yes always: 9.09%
Most of the time: 31.82%
Not very often: 59.09%
No never: 0%
5. How much do you typically spend on food when you eat out or
on campus?
>5: 13.64%
$5-10: 77.27%
$10-15: 9.09%
Over $18: 0%
6. When purchasing food do you read the nutritional value?
Never: 40.91%
On certain products: 27.27%
On most products: 31.82%
On every product: 0.0%
7. Would you enjoy healthier options on campus?
Yes: 82.73%
Doesnt bother me if campus does or not: 27.27%
No, I enjoy the choices offered: 0%
8. Would you be willing to spend extra money on healthy food?
No, I would not like to: 22.3%
Only a slight increase in price: 59.09%
Yes, but only $2-3 extra:9.09%
Yes, at any price thats reasonable to the product:9.09%
9. What does eating healthy mean to you
Low calories: 4.55%
Whole grains: 0%
Organic foods: 0%
Low sodium: 0%
Low fat: 4.55%
Well balanced: 81.82%
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Other (please specify): No sugar

Well-balanced, low sodium, low fats
10. What would you prefer to find on campus
Salad bar: 31.82%
Nutritional values easily available: 0%
Fresh snack (vegetables, fruits, parfaits, sandwiches):
68.18%
Other (please specify): 0

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