Walking across the quad on a Friday afternoon, Joe sees a mass of people huddled around a grill.  There’s a free barbeque!  As Joe gets in line, he looks at the table and sees hundreds of pre-cooked hamburger patties baking in the sun as the stacks of cheese are melting in their wrappers.  Joe takes a bite into a cheeseburger, and its dark red center is lukewarm.  He shrugs it off and continues to eat the burger as he walks back to the dorm.  What is wrong with this picture? 

Upon entering college, incoming first year students have been continuously warned about the dangers of alcohol, drug use, unsafe sex, and an imbalanced diet.  However, there is one danger that lurks on college campuses for which there is no warning. What could this hidden danger be?  The answer is foodborne illness.  Foodborne illness is a sickness with a variety of symptoms such as diarrhea, nausea, or fever that result from bacteria or other pathogens in food.  In many cases, the university setting provides a student’s first experiences with preparing his or her own food on a regular basis, and these students are often ignorant of the causes and prevalence of foodborne illness.  As a result, incoming students are at great risk of contracting this illness and must exercise caution when entering the university setting.  Scientists, Morrone and Rathbun, explore this issue in their 2003 study, Health education and food safety behavior in the university setting, by quantifying the danger of foodborne illnesses on college campuses.  Their study highlights two major points that are imperative for all students to understand.  First, foodborne illness is far more prevalent than most expect.  And second, students should practice the proper food safety precautions to insure their safety. 

 

Foodborne illness is rampant on college campuses

            To measure the prevalence of foodborne illness on college campuses, Morrone and Rathbun analyzed the number of cases of diarrhea contracted by students at Ohio University.  While it is true that diarrhea can result from other sicknesses such as influenza, it is most often caused by foodborne illness.  The diarrhea associated with this illness is caused by the antibiotics fed to animals, as well as the bacteria that accumulates in mishandled food.  Morrone and Rathbun’s results indicated that a remarkable 17% of students have had cases of diarrhea within any given month.  What is more shocking is that “most people with acute diarrhea do not seek medical care.”  For this reason, 17% is merely a conservative estimate of students stricken with this condition each month.   Because diarrhea is such a common symptom of foodborne illness, Morrone and Rathuub assert that foodborne illness is rampant. They warn that without taking the proper precautions, many students will contract the disease.  

 

Dangerous food-handling techniques must be avoided

            The lack of knowledge regarding food safety is demonstrated daily on college campuses.  College students are known to engage in risky dietary and food-preparing habits that often results in foodborne illness.  Three major at risk behaviors include eating pink hamburgers, eating runny eggs, and not heeding the warning on food labels (food labels provide instructions and cautions for preparing the product).  Morrone and Rathbun analyzed each of these three risky behaviors, and their results paint an ominous picture of students’ safety behavior.  Last year, 43.5% of college students have eaten pink hamburgers, which is far more than the national average of 19.7%.  Raw meat is dangerous because it contains bacteria and antibiotics that if not killed in the heating process can aggravate the bowels.   Also, more than half of the college students polled have eaten runny eggs in the last 12 months.  Improperly cooked eggs are dangerous because they are notorious for containing salmonella bacteria that can cause severe cramps and diarrhea.  These disturbing statistics can easily be reduced by taking the most basic precautions.  Burgers should be made thin and cooked thoroughly while eggs should also be well cooked.  Students should not hesitate to send suspect food back to the server or to dispose of it.

The ominous statistics regarding the lack of precautions taken by college students when preparing food are not aberrations that have just recently become problematic, but instead, they have been around for years.  In fact, ten years ago, in 1994, the federal government acknowledged the problem revealed by the above statistics and began an aggressive labeling campaign that provides information about how to prepare raw meat and poultry on the package.  Though this was a noble attempt, Morrone and Rathbun have shown it to be highly unsuccessful, especially among college students.  Only about 26.4% of students actually read labels, and about 6.5% change their food preparation behavior because of the labels.  This is far less than the national average of 36.7% of people who change their behavior due to the information provided on labels.  The fact that only 6.5% of students take heed to the labels is appalling.  As a result, students must be extra cautious about the food that is prepared by or for them.  Remember, if the food does not seem cooked properly or if there is reason to believe the proper sanitary precautions were not taken, (washing hands, using clean knives, etc.) DON’T EAT IT!

 

The take home message

            Foodborne illness is dangerous and prevalent and therefore ought to be added to the list of risks facing college students.  Why are college students so vulnerable to foodborne illness?  Morrone and Rathbun blame the inadequacy of health classes and other forms of education received by students before they enter college.  They explain that foodborne illness is often omitted from health class curriculums, and thus students are being done a great injustice.  “Without an understanding of how the food they (students) eat can make them sick, students will continue to suffer from foodborne illness…” Perhaps in the future, the government will take steps to increase foodborne illness awareness.  In the meantime, all incoming students should be aware of their weakness in foodborne illness awareness and take extra precautions to insure their own safety.

 

Bibliography:

Morrone, M., Rathbun A.  2003.  “Health Education and Food Safety Behavior in the

University Setting.”  Journal of Environmental Health. 65: 9-15.