Webinar Recap: Families Preparing for a Safe Freshman Food Allergy Experience

Your high school student with food allergies will soon head off to college. How will they find the accommodations they need, and what can they safely eat? Find answers to your college dining questions in a July 2019 webinar now available on foodallergy.org. Families Preparing for a Safe Freshman Food Allergy Experience is packed with helpful information from presenter Beth Winthrop, MS, RD, who shares what she learned working for Sodexo as a clinical nutrition manager and dietetic internship director.

Beth empathetically outlines how students feel about having to manage their food allergies and highlights behaviors that can put them at risk for a food allergy reaction. She offers recommendations on how and when to visit prospective schools, as well as questions to ask before and during your visit. She also highlights resources, including FARE College Food Allergy Search, that can help you identify allergy-friendly schools to consider.

During her career, Beth developed the My Zone personal pantry and Sodexo's award-winning Simple Servings allergen-safe resident dining option. In the webinar she explains how different meal plans work and spells out the advantages and disadvantages of various safe dining systems designed to accommodate students with food allergies or celiac disease. She advocates a communication-centered strategy for dining safely, observing that students who routinely reach out to the chefs who prepare their food are much less likely to experience accidental allergen exposures.

During her talk, Beth refers to an earlier FARE webinar that complements her presentation. Originally webcast in July 2017,  Navigating College and the College Process With Food Allergies, by recent college graduate and paramedic Lily Roth, gives a student’s perspective on applying to and attending college while managing multiple food allergies. We encourage you to visit the Educational Webinars page on foodallergy.org to register for upcoming webinars and explore archived webinars addressing a range of audiences and topics.