Over-confident and under-competent: exploring the importance of food safety education specific to high school students

Abstract

Abstract:The objective of this study was to explore age-specific reasons why food safety education might be important for high school students (in Ontario, Canada), from a variety of expert perspectives. In May 2014, semi-structured key informant interviews (n = 20) were conducted with food safety and youth education experts. A thematic analysis of verbatim transcripts of the interviews was conducted. Participants identified three major reasons why food safety is important for high school students: (i) they have current and personal needs for food safety information, (ii) high school is an ideal time and place to instill life-long good habits, and (iii) they are part of the foodborne illness risk landscape. Food safety education was deemed important for high school students, who were seen as a unique and captive audience in need of safe food handling skills, now and in the future, for a variety of reasons: potential employment advantages, improved food literacy, combating their sense of "invincibility, " and helping instill essential life skills that they may not get elsewhere. These results confirm the importance of food safety education for high school students and highlight the need to determine age-appropriate interventions and methods to engage high school students and improve their safe food handling practices.

Young People’s Views on Food Hygiene and Food Safety: A Multicentre Qualitative Study

“…Previous research with children, young people and university students across Europe, Australia, Canada and USA suggest a lack of knowledge, concern and perceived susceptibility to foodborne illness [4][5][6][7][8]. While findings report risky behaviours of young Educ.…”

Food Safety Education Needs of High‐School Students: Leftovers, Lunches, and Microwaves

“…The codebook was then used to code all transcripts (including the 5 used to develop the preliminary codes), and was refined as needed, resulting in a final codebook that contained the most important areas to cover when teaching food safety to high‐school students. Additional details on study methods are reported elsewhere …”

Review of risk communication and education strategies around food hygiene and safety for children and young people

“…Behaviour change has been linked to individual's perception of their own risk in behaviour models (Ahmed, Naik, Willoughby, & Edwards, 2012). Young people are an important audience for education on the risk of improper food hygiene and as they tend to be both over-confident in their perception of personal risk and practice more unsafe behaviours (Diplock et al, 2017). By educating children at a young age we can influence future behaviour and habits before they are even formed, setting a solid foundation for healthy behaviours and choices around food.…”