Every college student has heard of the dreaded "Freshman 15," and the inaccessibility of nutrition information doesn't help keep the weight off. To keep students healthy and assist in making good diet choices, Sodexho needs to post accurate nutritional information about the food it serves.

College weight gain is more than just a myth — a recent study by Cornell University found that within just the first 12 weeks at school, the average freshman piles on a whopping 4.2 pounds A Brown University study also notes that students tend to gain another two or three lbs. during their sophomore year.

Judging by the number of students we see at the Rec Center and Rec Plex, we are not the only ones on campus concerned by the prospect of significant weight gain. With this in mind, we appeal to Marquette and Sodexho to start posting nutrition information so that students can make healthier decisions.

The current method of providing students with information about what they are eating is ineffective. Presently, every dining room is equipped with an enormous binder filled with almost 1,300 pages listing every item made by Sodexho. When we visited dining halls across campus for this editorial, some employees knew where this information was, but others looked at us like we were speaking Greek.

When we finally got our hands on one of these binders, we were disappointed by what we saw. Many items listed are things that are not offered on this campus. The listings are sorted by category, not by alphabetical order, and some items have different names on paper than what is advertised on dining hall signs, making finding food items extremely difficult. Entrees offered in Cafe Italiano are not listed, at least not in a way that we could find them (although its chef generously offered to e-mail us information.)

This method of informing students is unacceptable. No student has time to rifle through a 1,300-page binder, trying to guess what his or her casserole is called in official Sodexho terms, while on a break from class. Sodexho does have a Web site where students can search for items, but is as poorly organized as the hard copy.

In order to ensure that all students have access to information that will help them make healthy choices, Sodexho should post meal information for the items it serves. This would not be very difficult. Most items are served relatively frequently, and dining halls could simply print and post cards for each meal item when it is served. The nutrition calculations have already been made, it is just a matter of making the information easy to find.

Across the nation, people are asking for information about what they are putting in their mouths. Laws have been passed in some states, such as New York and California, requiring at least some restaurants to post their nutrition facts. A number of universities in states without such laws — for example the University of Nebraska-Lincoln — have voluntarily begun posting nutrition information for what they serve on campus. In an effort to stave off the "Freshman 15" and keep our campus healthy, we would like Marquette and Sodexho to follow suit and publish nutrition facts in a user-friendly way on campus. Students should be able to make nutritional choices without the 20-minute time commitment and thesaurus needed to interpret the current listing that Sodexho offers.