FARE Aims To Help Manage Food Allergy In Colleges

By Megan Weyrauch on April 15, 2015

It’s lunch time and as you peruse your university dining hall, your eyes immediately fall on a display of neatly stacked chocolate chip cookies. Grabbing a couple on your way to the register, you make your purchase and sit down, prepared to indulge after a long morning of classes.

Giving in to your sweet tooth, you open one of your packs of cookies and dig in. Pretty soon, your mouth starts to itch and as your tongue swells up, you realize an awful truth: though the cookies were labeled chocolate chip, the label that read “may contain traces of tree nuts” escaped your notice.

Food allergies are no laughing matter, and college is hard enough for students trying to become independent, let alone for those who have food allergies on top of that.

To help manage food allergy in higher education institutions, Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE) recently announced the launch of a pilot program, according to a recent press release.

This program is aimed at “providing colleges and universities with gold-standard recommendations and evidence-based resources needed to effectively manage food allergy, a potentially life-threatening disease.”

Working on behalf of the 15 million Americans with food allergies, including those at risk for life-threatening anaphylaxis, FARE’s mission is to improve the quality of life and the health of individuals with food allergies and to provide them hope through the promise of new treatments.

FARE developed the “Pilot Guidelines for Managing Food Allergies in Higher Education” together with experts in the areas of health, housing, dining services, disability services and emergency medical services.

With a goal of providing students with food allergies a safer college experience by helping schools develop comprehensive, uniform food allergy management policies, the FARE College Food Allergy Program was introduced last year, according to the release.

FARE chose the following 12 schools nationwide to participate in the pilot program:

• College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, Mass.)
• George Mason University (Fairfax, Va.)
• King’s College (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.)
• North Carolina State University
• Texas A&M University
• University of Arizona
• University of Chicago
• University of Michigan
• University of Northern Colorado
• University of Southern California
• Valparaiso University (Valparaiso, Ind.)
• Wesleyan University (Middletown, Conn.)

These schools will implement FARE’s pilot guidelines which offer guidance for identifying students with food allergies and serving their needs via housing, dining, health, disability and emergency services.

In addition, these schools will receive free food allergy training for dining and resident life staff as well as receiving assistance and support from FARE. FARE will also support the creation of student support groups on campuses.

“We are very excited to be working with these outstanding institutions of higher learning that have recognized the critical importance of ensuring the safety of their students with food allergies,” said James R. Baker, Jr., M.D., CEO of FARE. “The new guidelines cover food allergy management in all aspects of campus life, and this pilot program enables colleges and universities to test them in a campus environment.”

In 2016, FARE will launch a database that will give all colleges and universities the opportunity to list the components of FARE’s program and guidelines they have implemented in an effort to assist students and parents as they try to decide where to attend school.

Schools wishing to access free resources, including the Pilot Guidelines for Managing Food Allergies in Higher Education, are invited to visit FoodAllergy.org.

Organized around the core tenets of life, health and hope, FARE is proud to be partnering with food allergy experts, college and university representatives, the Association on Higher Education and Disability, MenuTrinfo and foodservice industry representatives from Premier REACH, Sodexo and Compass Group on this program.

Find more information on FARE at FoodAllergy.org.

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