Does eating more frequently at the university cafeteria promote healthier and more environmentally friendly diets in French students?

As public institutions, French university cafeterias have the potential to favour student well-being and academic performance by offering affordable, high-quality meals. More than half of the student population ate in these facilities at least once a week, with 17% eating there daily. However, limited data exists on students' actual food choices in this context. This study aimed to investigate the role of university catering in student diets, focusing on nutritional quality and environmental impact. Two hundred and fifty-three students were recruited using a non-probability quotas-based sampling method at the entrance of a large university cafeteria in Dijon during autumn 2023. Participants were 56% women and 20.2 (2.6) years old on average; they ate at this cafeteria at least once a week. They were asked to take pictures of their meal tray each time they ate at this cafeteria during three months. They also completed online questionnaires assessing their sociodemographic characteristics, overall diet using a 125-item food frequency questionnaire and attendance at university catering. The nutritional quality and environmental impact of students' food choices at the university cafeteria and of their overall diets were assessed as adherence to French recommendations, sPNNS-GS2 score, and greenhouse gas emissions, kg eCO 2 and calculated for a standard 2000 kcal intake. The results indicated significant potential for improving the nutritional quality and environmental impact of both the students' food choices at the university cafeteria and of their overall diets. While frequent attendance at university catering was associated with healthier food choices ( β =0.15, p =0.027) this did not translate into a broader improvement in the overall nutritional quality of students' diets ( β =0.09, p =0.222). No associations were found between attendance at university catering with neither environmental impact of food choices ( β =0.03, p =0.170) nor of overall diets ( β =0.05, p =0.291). These findings suggest that although university catering has the potential to promote healthier and more sustainable eating habits, its full potential has yet to be realised notably by increasing the availability of healthier and more environmentally-friendly options such as legume-based dishes.