Abstract
Residential college life offers a window of opportunity to promote long-term healthy eating. Food and nutrition professionals providing services to college students can lay claim to these "teachable moments." Nutrition information provided as part of residential dining services can be used to increase students' knowledge and promote skills to help students make better food consumption decisions. The college years are a critical period in young adults' lives when appropriate lifelong eating habits targeted at achieving or maintaining ideal body weight can be developed or reinforced. The current obesity problem in late adolescence is discussed as well as research findings that suggest that nutrition information at the point of selection may be an effective means to provide college students with the knowledge to make informed choices about the food they eat.