#SchoolFoodies

Optimising Primary School Food and Nutrition Environments in Queensland

Towards a co-design model for sustainable action

The Challenge

Schools influence the behaviours and social norms of their students.

Australian children are not meeting the dietary recommendations for fruit and vegetable intake. School-based nutrition education programs have been shown to positively impact the dietary behaviours of children and improve overall child health. However, every school community has its own unique circumstances, and a one size fits all approach is not appropriate. The #SchoolFoodies four-year program of research aims to co-design and guide an equity and place-based model for building food literacy and improving diet quality among primary school children in Queensland. 

What are we hoping to find?

The co-design model will be scalable to promote universal access and yet will be adaptable to enable schools to better respond to the unique challenges and opportunities in their local environment. Our research will identify the barriers and enablers for schools to establish and sustain positive health knowledge and behaviours around food and nutrition, including practices supporting the consumption of fruit and vegetables.  

We will support school communities to identify their food and nutrition priorities and implement and drive a fit for purpose #SchoolFoodies model. 

Our Approach

Schools have been identified as appropriate settings for nutrition education and improving diet quality as most Australian children attend school five days per week, consuming at least one meal and one snack per day in the school environment. #SchoolFoodies uses a co-design process that orientates the whole school community towards optimising primary school food and nutrition environments in Queensland for sustained improvements in our children’s health and wellbeing. 

 We have undertaken several literature reviews, two surveys and an ethnography. Two literature reviews scoped existing evidence on the optimisation of school food and nutrition environments in Australian primary schools and an international review of the elements that support and hinder teachers in delivering nutrition education. Another grey literature review scoped the existing, freely available, nutrition education resources available to teachers in Australia.  

We undertook two Queensland-wide surveys, one with primary school principals and one with teachers. These surveys explored the experiences of school food environments and nutrition education from the perspectives of principals and teachers across the state. 

These projects informed the #SchoolFoodies ethnography, where we went into four primary schools in Queensland to observe and understand the perspective of a variety of school communities. We are currently analysing this data which will serve as the basis for our final research phase, co-designing adaptable #SchoolFoodies models for optimising primary school food and nutrition environments in Queensland schools. 

Progress 

#SchoolFoodies has completed the data collection across four primary schools in Queensland. This included school visits and observations, interviews with school staff and parents, observations of some classroom practices and a food-based activity with one class in each school.

#SchoolFoodies has entered the final research phase, the co-design of a Food and Nutrition Curriculum Planning Toolkit. The aim of this resource is to save teachers time whilst ensuring food and nutrition education is taught in a way that suits each school’s context, is integrated across the curriculum and engaging. Co-design workshops with Heads of Curriculum from a variety of schools have taken place and the insights gained are informing the development of the toolkit. In the coming months we will develop a prototype, seek feedback from participating schools, iterate and implement a resource that will expand what is possible in food and nutrition education across Queensland primary schools.

This research has ethical approval from Queensland University of Technology (HREA 2022-5087-9036) and Education Queensland (Ref. 550/27/2568). Thank you in advance for taking the time out to work with QUT to improve the health and wellbeing of Queensland children.

Want to get in touch with us? 

Please feel free to contact our #SchoolFoodies team via Contact Form below or Email us at: schoolfoodies@qut.edu.au

Publications 

Lead Researchers

• Chantelle Sansness
  

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• Dr Emma Esdaile
  

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• Professor Danielle Gallegos
  

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