Sustainability and public health nutrition at school: assessing the integration of healthy and environmentally sustainable food initiatives in Vancouver schools

Abstract

Objective: To describe the development and application of the School Food Environment Assessment Tools and a novel scoring system to assess the integration of healthy and environmentally sustainable food initiatives in elementary and secondary schools. Design: The cross-sectional study included direct observations of physical food environments and interviews with key school personnel regarding food-related programmes and policies. A five-point scoring system was then developed to assess actions across six domains: (i) food gardens; (ii) composting systems; (iii) food preparation activities; (iv) food-related teaching and learning activities; and availability of (v) healthy food; and (vi) environmentally sustainable food. Setting: Vancouver, Canada. Subjects: A purposive sample of public schools (n 33) from all six sectors of the Vancouver Board of Education. Results: Schools scored highest in the areas of food garden and compost system development and use. Regular integration of food-related teaching and learning activities and hands-on food preparation experiences were also commonly reported. Most schools demonstrated rudimentary efforts to make healthy and environmentally sustainable food choices available, but in general scored lowest on these two domains. Moreover, no schools reported widespread initiatives fully supporting availability or integration of healthy or environmentally sustainable foods across campus. Conclusions: More work is needed in all areas to fully integrate programmes and policies that support healthy, environmentally sustainable food systems in Vancouver schools. The assessment tools and proposed indicators offer a practical approach for researchers, policy makers and school stakeholders to assess school food system environments, identify priority areas for intervention and track relevant changes over time.

Food and beverage promotions in Vancouver schools: A study of the prevalence and characteristics of in-school advertising, messaging, and signage

“…Data were collected as part of the Think&EatGreen@School project, a Community University Research Alliance project that initiated a variety of food system and curricular activities in VBE Schools (K–12) ( Think&EatGreen@School, nd , Rojas et al, 2011 ). As part of this project, detailed School Food Environment Assessment Tools (SFEAT) were created and implemented over two schools years (2011/2012 and 2012/2013) to examine several broad domains related to school food systems ( Black et al, 2015 ). During 2011/2012 data collection, the researchers recognized the need to comprehensively document food and beverage promotions.…”

Measuring Progress in Sustainable Food Cities: An Indicators Toolbox for Action

“…This literature is by and large linked to the Alternative Food Networks scholarship [36]. As part of this body of work, different exercises have been conducted to evaluate the impact of specific initiatives on different sustainability dimensions from community supported agriculture to food initiatives in schools [37][38][39]. For example, Peano et al [40] developed a set of sustainability indicators and applied it to a Slow Food project which focuses on developing farm-to-market systems for local, high-quality, sustainable products.…”

Public health nutrition and sustainability

“…This finding was further supported by Munroe et al, who report that an online, interactive intervention for full-time students (18-24 years) attending a public university in the USA was effective in motivating college students to adopt 'green eating' behaviours (20) . Black and her team describe the development and application of the School Food Environment Assessment Tools as a novel scoring system to assess the integration of healthy and environmentally sustainable food initiatives in thirty-three elementary and secondary schools in Vancouver (21) . The authors report that the assessment tools and proposed indicators offer a practical approach for researchers, policy makers and school stakeholders to assess school food system environments, identify priority areas for intervention and track relevant changes over time.…”