Ditching College Cafeteria Trays Reduces Food -- And Pounds

by Bill Sertl, Posted Feb 18th 2011 @ 3:00PM

school lunch trays Photo: John E. Lester, Flickr

A portrait of Henry VIII hangs in the Tudor dining hall at Oxford's Christ Church College (a stand-in for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films, by the way), which the famously large King founded in 1532. We may never know why Henry had so many wives, but his obesity is almost surely the result of never having to get up from the dining table.

While university students don't have servants to feed them, they do have cafeteria trays, which allow them to pile on the pork as they proceed to pork up. But The Washington Post reports that Virginia Tech, whose new dining hall is filled with gourmet treats like Belgian waffles and brick-oven pizza, has now banned the enabling trays in an effort to cut down on the eyes-bigger-than-the-stomach syndrome.

The school says it's trying to stop food from being wasted, while other colleges in the Washington area (notably Georgetown and George Washington) cite environmental reasons-saving water, soap, electricity. But the side effect is weight -- students now have to get off their rears if they really want that second plate of tiramisù for dessert. And that can only be a good thing. Hopefully, no college co-ed will ever have to look in the mirror again to pose the heart-wrenching question: "Does this tray make my butt look big?"

Filed Under: Trends, Food News
Tags: cafeteria trays, featured, Freshman15