March is National Nutrition Month, and a newly developed dining commons program at Penn State is encouraging students to think healthier about their current eating habits.

Each of the seven dining commons on the University Park campus will be holding a favorite fruit campaign throughout the month, which is encouraging students to vote for their favorite kind of fruit, said Lindsey Mahood (senior-nutritional science), a student nutritional assistant who assisted in organizing the month-long program.

"At the end of the month, all the votes will be tallied, and we will be able to see which fruit wins for each individual dining commons as well as campus-wide,"she said.

Despite la limited amount of information on the contest at the time, Mahood said that strawberries and mangoes appeared to be winning the competition at the end of the first week of voting.

According to the American Dietetic Association (ADA), the theme of National Nutrition Month for 2007 is "100% Fad Free."

The target of the campaign is to choose sensible foods on an every day basis and learn how to spot a food fad.

The campaign will also focus on the theme of the ADA by providing information on fad diets--diets that are supposed to promote and improve healthier eating habits and lifestyle but may have the opposite effect.

Key features of fad diets include unreasonable or exaggerated claims that eating -- or not eating -- specific foods, nutrient supplements or combinations of foods offer quick weight loss, according to the
ADA Web site. "In keeping with the '100% Fad-Free' theme, we have been displaying signs in the dining commons about fad diets," said Mahood.

The signs have focused on particular fad diets that are popular among celebrities and young people such as the Atkins, South Beach and Zone diets, she said.

"For each diet, we have information on what it is, why people think it's a good diet and what experts say about it," Mahood said.

Based on expert opinion, the Atkins diet contradicts what we know about health, she said.

"The other two diets are slightly better but still not individualized help," she said.

The National Nutrition Month events will culminate with a quiz, which is scheduled to be held on Thursday in all dining commons across campus.

"There will be a bunch of questions about fad diets ... students who get all the questions right will be entered into a drawing for a free smoothie," Mahood said.

Most students thought the campaign against fad diets was a good idea.

"I think fad diets can be misleading because they target one thing, and then you miss out on the whole thing. It's good to raise awareness," said Gloria King (sophomore-mechanical engineering).

Christopher Huber (freshman-biology) said he thought the dining commons offered enough healthy food. "They have a lot of salad and fruit," he said.

Mahood said that she thought the program was important in order to help raise awareness among college-aged students about healthy choices.

"I'm hoping that what we're doing will help people understand the theme of National Nutrition Month, which is really applicable to college students, and that the activities get students more motivated," she said.