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- Berggren, Linda, et al.
(författare)
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Healthy eating as an unquestional norm in the school lunch context - Nordic children´s perspective
- 2016
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Ingår i: The VII Conference on childhood studies: Childhood in everyday life. - 9789512956593 - 9789512956609
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Introduction/Background: In the Nordic primary schools school lunches are organized in different ways, ranging from a hot meal served daily to every pupil free of charge to lunch boxes taken from home. Yet, the importance of the lunch for health and nutrition has been emphasized in all countries in dietary recommendations or in curricula. Little is known, however, how children themselves reflect on healthy eating in the school lunch context.Topic/Aim: to explore 10-year-old Nordic children’s perspectives on healthy eating in the school lunch context.Methods: Results are based on 72 focus groups with altogether 423 Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian and Icelandic participants of the Nordic ProMeal study. Stimulated by preselected photos taken in different global school lunch situations children were autonomously able to select interesting topics and perspectives for discussions. The data was analyzed by using thematic analysis and focusing on both semantic and latent meanings.Results/Findings: Two main themes were found in the data: First, a semantic theme of categorizing related to the ways how healthy and unhealthy eating were distinguished from each other, and second, a more latent theme of the acceptability of healthy and unhealthy eating. Clear dichotomy of the entities of healthy and unhealthy eating dominated the discussion. Healthy eating was constructed as a rational, normative and acceptable way to eat in the school context, even with some moralistic tones. Yet, children also negotiated the borders of these two entities, which made the principally unacceptable unhealthy eating more acceptable also in the school context.Conclusions: Nordic children seem to share the adult-set aim of healthy eating in the school context as a socio-cultural norm. Teachers dealing with healthy eating should be aware of and reflect the normative, even moral nature of healthy eating.
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| 2. |
- Berggren, Linda, et al.
(författare)
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Nordic children's conceptualizations of healthy eating in relation to school lunch
- 2017
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Ingår i: Health Education. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 0965-4283 .- 1758-714X. ; 117:2, s. 130-147
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: Pupils' perspective should be better taken into account when developing nutrition education at school. The purpose of this paper is to explore Nordic children's perspectives on the healthiness of meals in the context of school lunches.Design/methodology/approach: In total, 78 focus group discussions were conducted with 10-11-year-old girls and boys (n=457) from schools in Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, which were participating in the Nordic school meal project ProMeal during the school year 2013-2014. A flexible discussion guide and stimulus material in the form of 14 photographs displaying different school lunch contexts were used. The discussions were analyzed using thematic analysis.Findings: These Nordic children seem to share the adult-set aim of healthy eating in the school context as a socio-cultural norm. Although healthy eating was constructed as a rational, normative and acceptable way to eat at school, unhealthy eating was emphasized as negotiably acceptable when eaten occasionally and under certain circumstances (e.g. at special occasions). Unhealthy eating also comprised emotionally laden descriptions such as enjoyment and disgust. Practical implications: Children's conceptualizations of healthy eating are connected to nutritional, socio-cultural, emotional and normative dimensions, which should be reflected also when developing nutrition education in school.Originality/value: The need for research exploring children's experiences of, and understandings about, school lunch motivated this unique multicenter study with a large number of participating children. In the focus groups a child-oriented, photo-elicitation method was used.
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| 3. |
- Berggren, Linda, et al.
(författare)
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Perspectives about health outcomes related to food among Nordic children
- 2016
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Perspectives about health outcomes related to food among Nordic childrenLinda Berggren* 1, Sanna Talvia2, Eldbjørg Fossgard3, Unnur Björk Arnfjörð4, Agneta Hörnell 1, Anna Ólafsdóttir 4,Ingibjörg Gunnarsdóttir 5, Hege Wergedahl 3, Hanna Lagström 6, Maria Waling1, Cecilia Olsson11Umeå University, Department of food and nutrition, Umeå, Sweden, 2Child and Youth Research institute, Turku, Finland,3Faculty of Education, Bergen University College, Bergren, Norway, 4School of Education, University of Iceland, 5TheNational University Hospital of Iceland , Unit for Nutrition Research, Reykjavik, Iceland, 6University of Turku, TurkuInstitute of Child and Youth Research, Turku, FinlandPreferred presentation type: Only PosterBackground and aims: Dietary intake in school has previously been studied but little is known about Nordic children’sperspectives on food healthiness in the school lunch context. This study aims to explore 10-year-old Nordic children’sperspectives on outcomes of healthy eating in the school lunch context.Methods: Seventy-two focus groups were conducted in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland with a total of 423participants. A flexible topic guide and 14 preselected photos displaying different school lunch contexts were used asstimuli material. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis.Results: Children reasoned that school lunch are and should be healthy since the food eaten at school has short andlong term outcomes related to cognitive and physical health. It was commonly expressed that food eaten in school affectsschool work and functioning in learning activities. It was also stated that food eaten in school can have negative andpositive effects on your mood, e.g. eating unhealthy food or an insufficient amount of food, puts you in a bad mood whichcan affect the rest of the school day. The discussions mainly relied on negative short term effects such as feeling ill andreduced stamina. Some food and food groups such as vegetables, milk and fish, were mentioned in a more positivesense highlighting the positive short- and long term outcomes on health. When describing the long-term outcomes ofeating, children mentioned that healthy eating helps to build muscles, grow and prevent diseases, such as cancer anddiabetes. Sugar and fat was frequently mentioned as being the cause of overweight and some other diseases.Conclusion: In general, Nordic children have an adequate understanding of established relations between food andhealth. Yet, we know that many pupils do not eat according to recommendations. This highlights the importance of takingthe complexity of food choice into consideration in nutritional education.Disclosure of Interest: None to declare
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