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The teaching of cooking is an important aspect of school-based efforts to promote healthy diets among children, and is frequently done by external agencies. Within a limited evidence base relating to cooking interventions in schools, there are important questions about how interventions are integrated within school settings. The purpose of this paper is to examine how a mobile classroom (Cooking Bus) sought to strengthen connections between schools and cooking, and drawing on the concept of the sociotechnical network, theorise the interactions between the Bus and school contexts.

Methods comprised a postal questionnaire to 76 schools which had received a Bus visit, and case studies of the Bus’ work in five schools, including a range of school sizes and urban/rural locations. Case studies comprised observation of Cooking Bus sessions, and interviews with school staff.

The Cooking Bus forged connections with schools through aligning intervention and schools’ goals, focussing on pupils’ cooking skills, training teachers and contributing to schools’ existing cooking-related activities. The Bus expanded its sociotechnical network through post-visit integration of cooking activities within schools, particularly teachers’ use of intervention cooking kits.

The paper highlights the need for research on the long-term impacts of school cooking interventions, and better understanding of the interaction between interventions and school contexts.

This paper adds to the limited evidence base on school-based cooking interventions by theorising how cooking interventions relate to school settings, and how they may achieve integration.

Children’s cooking abilities are correlated with increased self-efficacy (SE) for selecting healthy foods and increased consumption of fruits and vegetables. Instruments that measure outcomes of nutrition education programs require psychometric assessment for face validity. Survey items related to cooking experience (CE), SE, and attitude used in a school-based cooking program were assessed for face validity. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Cognitive interviews were conducted with children who had completed third to fifth grades in Northern Colorado, USA. Interviews were examined using content analysis to derive categories for children’s concepts of cooking and making food and to assess survey item comprehension.

In total, 24 children participated. Most were white, non-Hispanic/Latino and half had most recently completed fourth grade. Categories related to “making food” and “cooking” included foods prepared with and without a heat source, baked goods/desserts, and activities used in meal/food preparation. Most participants comprehended the survey items and provided responses that were congruent with operational definitions established from identified themes, demonstrating face validity with this sample.

Children’s concepts of “cooking,” although robust, show interpersonal variation requiring a prudent approach toward intervention evaluation and supporting use of these face valid survey items. Consider revisions of survey items that add frequency qualifiers and explicit cooking examples as appropriate.

This study addresses a gap in the literature on children’s understanding of cooking and offers face valid survey items to measure CEs, skill, and attitudes.

There is increasing interest in the domestic preparation of food and with the postulated health benefits of “cooking from scratch”. The purpose of this paper is to examine the demographic and food preparation associations of this term in order to examine its operational value.

A national online survey was conducted during 2012 in Australia among 1,023 domestic food providers, half of whom were men. Questions were asked about cooking from scratch, demographic characteristics, food preparation practices and interest in learning about cooking.

Three quarters of the sample reported they often or always “cooked from scratch” (CFS). More women than men always CFS; fewer 18-29 year olds did so often or always but more of the over 50s always did so; fewer single people CFS than cohabiting people. No statistically significant ethnic, educational background or household income differences were found. High levels of cooking from scratch were associated with interest in learning more about cooking, greater use of most cooking techniques (except microwaves), meat and legume preparation techniques, and the use of broader ranges of herbs, spice, liquids/ sauces, other ingredients and cooking utensils.

In future work a numerical description of the frequency of cooking from scratch should be considered along with a wider range of response options. The data were derived from an online panel from which men were oversampled. Caution is required in comparisons between men and women respondents. The cross-sectional nature of the sample prevents any causal attributions from being drawn from the observed relationships. Further replication of the findings, especially the lack of association with educational background should be conducted.

This is the first study to examine the associations of demographic characteristics and cooking practices with cooking from scratch. The findings suggest that cooking from scratch is common among Australian family food providers and signifies interest in learning about cooking and involvement in a wide range of cooking techniques.

School-based nutrition education programmes have the potential to reinforce healthy dietary behaviours in adolescents. The purpose of this paper is to understand the views of secondary school students in Kolkata, India, regarding the food and nutrition curriculum, food skill acquisition at school and home and barriers to learning food skills.

The sample of 1,026 year nine students was drawn from nine private, English-speaking secondary schools in Kolkata, India to participate in a cross-sectional, self-reported paper-based survey. Data analyses including descriptive statistics and χ² analyses were performed.

The majority of the respondents (65.3 per cent) were female. Biology, Home Science and Life skills classes were the main places in which students acquired food and nutrition knowledge. Almost two-thirds of the respondents acknowledged the importance of acquiring food-related knowledge and skills. Approximately half (48.3 per cent) reported that the food and nutrition curriculum involved excessive memorisation while around the same proportion described the curriculum as interesting (47 per cent) and easy to comprehend (50.3 per cent). However, relatively few students said they enjoyed attending food and nutrition classes (38.7 per cent). Only a minority reported receiving food skills training, i.e. cooking skills (23 per cent), meal planning skills and food purchasing skills (12.3 per cent) at school. Despite some parental support received at home, time constraints (50.5 per cent) and lack of interest (26.3 per cent) were cited as prominent barriers to learning food skills.

These data underscore the need for a skills-focussed food and nutrition curriculum to improve Indian adolescents’ food-related skills, nutritional knowledge and dietary behaviours.

This is the first cross-sectional survey to investigate the delivery of nutrition education and food skills in the Indian school context.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the differences in pupils’ satisfaction on various aspects of mid-day meal (MDM) program in India across food catered by centralized and decentralized kitchens.

The study is based on structured questionnaire survey through personal interviews of 1,200 school children of primary and upper primary schools of four districts of the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Simple statistical tools such as descriptive statistics, factor analysis, t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) have been used for meaningful data analysis.

Pupils’ responses on 17 attributes of their satisfaction on school meal program were reduced to four components − quality of food, social bonding, health and hygiene and availability of support infrastructure, using factor analysis technique. Findings show the perceived differences in satisfaction on various aspects of MDM program. Further, ANOVA indicate that there is significant difference in the satisfaction level on MDM supplied through centralized and decentralized kitchens.

This study provides an understanding of pupils’ perceptions of school meal program in order to enable policy makers, school administration and caterers of MDM to design better food service delivery models.

Findings of the study clearly indicate that benefit of social bonding is an added advantage to continue the school meal program irrespective of the fact whether food is served through centralized or decentralized kitchens.

There are several evaluation studies undertaken by various agencies to assess the impact of MDM program in India. However, there are only limited numbers of studies available, which have analyzed the children’s satisfaction on school MDM program across kitchen types.

Health literacy is a key international public health goal. Conceptualising health literacy as an asset highlights the importance of fostering a health literate youth for the benefit of future generations, yet research has predominantly focused on examining adults’ and older adolescents’ health literacy. This presents a gap for child-centred studies with younger populations. The purpose of this paper is to report the findings from a qualitative study that explored health literacy, in a nutrition context (i.e. nutrition literacy), from primary school children’s perspectives.

The study examined children’s experiences in accessing, understanding and interacting with nutrition information. In doing so, the research employed a socio-ecological framework to understand facilitators and barriers that can influence children’s nutrition literacy. Preadolescent boys and girls aged 11–12 years were invited to take part in the study. At the time of recruitment, students were attending one of three state government schools in a socioeconomically disadvantaged region of metropolitan South Australia. A series of focus groups and individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 38 participants. Interview data were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic techniques.

Children demonstrated that they accessed and interacted with a variety of sources of nutrition information. Nutrition understandings were derived from the home, school and media environments. Parents and teachers were cited as key influences on children’s interactions with nutrition information and children particularly emphasised the trust placed in their teachers as health “experts.” While the home and school environments emerged as potential settings to develop children’s nutrition literacy skills, the children’s narratives also alluded to potential barriers surrounding nutrition literacy.

This study provides further insight into children’s nutrition literacy. While functional nutrition literacy remains a fundamental starting point, children are interested in opportunities to develop more interactive skills, such as those related to cooking. Opportunities also exist to foster more critical competencies. This research thereby highlights the importance of more integrated strategies to promote nutrition literacy among this population group across multiple settings.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the difference in students’ preferences on weekly menu of school mid-day meal (MDM) program in Uttar Pradesh, India.

The study is based on primary structured questionnaire survey through personal interviews using multi-stage stratified sampling technique. This comprehensive survey covered 2,400 primary and upper primary students belonging to eight districts of Uttar Pradesh – Allahabad, Balrampur, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Hathras, Kanpur Nagar, Mathura, Shahjahanpur and Varanasi. A total of 60 schools have been selected from each district, covering a total of 480 primary and upper primary schools. Simple statistical tools have been used to analyze the surveyed data such as cross-tabulation, percentage distribution and rank analysis. Further, six research hypotheses have been formulated to analyze the difference in school meal menu preferences among the students and χ2-statistics has been used to test the significance level of these hypotheses.

Survey results indicate that more than 90 percent students eat MDM in the school as per the weekly menu. Result of χ2-test indicates that choices on school meal menu among the students differ significantly across weekdays. Rice-pulses or rice-sambar served on Tuesday is reported to be the first preferred food of children given first preference by around 30 percent, followed by kadi-rice or kheer which is served on Wednesday. The results of χ2-tests exhibited a significant difference on weekly menu choices by gender, kitchen types, rural and urban locations and geographical regions. About 27 percent of the students reported that they want to have a change in the menu. When further probed about the kind of changes desired in the menu, puri-vegetables was found to be the most preferred choice of the respondents, beside halwa/kheer and rice with pulses/vegetables/kadi being the next preferred choices.

The present study provides managerial implications to the policy makers and scheme/program implementers for better understanding of the students’ preferences on school MDM weekly menu.

There are several evaluation studies undertaken by various agencies to assess the impact of MDM program on school attendance, retention and nutritional status of children. However, there are limited numbers of studies available, which have measured the students’ preferences on school MDM menu.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how students’ participation in an integrated school food program was related to the development of components of food and health-related action competence (F & HRAC). These components were understood to be the knowledge, insight, motivation, ownership and social skills that made students able to take action regarding food and health in everyday life.

Research was undertaken as a single case study of the development of an integrated education and health program called LOMA-Local Food (LOMA) in a secondary school in Denmark. Qualitative methods were applied, including an action research component, where researcher and teachers examined how students developed action competence. The program was based on a whole school approach with the aim of improving F & HRAC. As a way to obtain this, students participated in planning, preparing, cooking and serving their own school food as integrated in curriculum. The study applied the Health Promoting Schools’ (HPS) conceptual framework and the

nvestigation,

ision,

ction and

hange (IVACE) approach.

Students who participated in LOMA educational activities became motivated for developing a food F & HRAC, which included components such as knowledge, insight, motivation, ownership, action experience, commitment, cooperation and critical thinking. Students developed practical skills related to food and health, when they were cooking healthy school food together with professionals and peers. The study also points to the importance of capacity building among teachers. The IVACE matrix is suggested as a relevant tool for monitoring forms of participation that contributes to students’ development of F & HRAC.

There were indications of how participation in LOMA contributed to students’ development of F & HRAC. The practical implication of this is that “setting” is very important for the success of food and health education initiatives. In this integrated approach the production kitchen and the dining hall are indispensable. Also the new organization of the school day and the introduction of a shared daily meal are important practical components for the improvement of the learning environment. The possibility of combining theory and practice seem conducive for students’ achievement of action competence.

The current study is an example of how the IVACE matrix can be applied in order to plan, conduct and evaluate LOMA educational activities, which could be considered as a contribution to the HPS scientific community. It would be useful for other schools that intend to apply the LOMA approach. However, more research is needed, where teachers, students, staff and other stakeholders collaborate in an action research process. This could promote students’ health and support other initiatives regarding public health, sustainable development and democracy.

This research may have implications for the way that school food programs are developed and implemented if they are to make a contribution to students’ development of F & HRAC. Taking the political interest for research-based interventions into account, it is important that future strategies include teachers’ capacity building. Research is also needed regarding further development and test of the IVACE matrix as a method in participatory, health education approaches. This should be seen in combination with a renewed focus on integrated curricula models related to the on-going discussion on redesign of western school curricula.

This study aims to investigate how the “cooking holiday” concept can be used by tourism authorities and practitioners and, to that end, proposes a hierarchical framework for improving culinary tourism.

This study adopted the Delphi method to filter and verify the criteria, thereby constructing a hierarchical framework of cooking holidays in Taiwan. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was also applied to calculate the relative weight of each attribute and criterion, thus identifying their degrees of importance.

Four attributes (“local food,” “food trail,” “cooking experience” and “environment and atmosphere”) and 22 criteria were identified to comprise a cooking holiday experience framework. Research findings reveal “cooking experience” as the most crucial of the four attributes identified. Of the more numerous criteria, “ingredients with integrity,” “local features” and “diverse curriculum” were identified as the three most important.

The hierarchical framework of cooking holiday experiences can be used by tourism authorities and practitioners to enhance experiential quality for tourists and promote culinary tourism in Taiwan. According to the research findings, cooking class participants can concentrate on the “cooking experience” while emphasizing “ingredients with integrity,” “local features” and “diverse curricula” in the context of cooking holidays.

This study offers valuable insights and suggests directions for future research on culinary tourism. This study also offers a framework for developing cooking holidays.

本文旨在探究可以如何运用「烹饪假期」之概念, 藉由阶层架构之提出, 藉以提升美食观光。

本文运用德尔菲法筛选与确认台湾烹饪假期阶层架构之指标与建构。并以层级分析法(AHP)估算每一属性与指针之相对权重, 藉以确认相对重要程度。

烹饪假期体验架构系由四个属性（「在地饮食」、「产制体验」、「烹饪体验」与「环境氛围」）与二十二个指标构成。研究发现显示「烹饪体验」在于四个属性之中最为重要。多项指标之中, 「安心食材」「在地特色」与「多元课程」系为最为重要之三个指标。

烹饪假期体验之阶层架构可为观光主管机关与业者运用, 藉以提升游客之体验质量与推广台湾之美食观光。依据研究发现, 烹饪教室参与者可以专注「烹饪体验」, 并且强调「安心食材」、「在地特色」与「多元课程」之要素, 藉以发展烹饪假期。

本文提供具有价值之洞见, 可供美食观光未来研究之参考。本文同时提供一个可以用以发展烹饪假期之架构。

Este estudio tiene como objetivo investigar cómo se puede utilizar el concepto de “vacaciones de cocina” al proponer un marco jerárquico para mejorar el turismo culinario.

Este estudio adoptó el método Delphi para filtrar y verificar los criterios y construir el marco jerárquico de las vacaciones de cocina en Taiwán. El proceso analítico jerárquico (AHP) también se aplica para calcular el peso relativo de cada atributo y el criterio para identificar su grado de importancia.

Se identificaron cuatro atributos (“comida local”, “ruta culinaria”, “experiencia culinaria” y “entorno y ambiente”) y 22 criterios para comprender un marco de experiencia de vacaciones culinarias. Los resultados de la investigación revelan que la “experiencia culinaria” es el atributo más relevante de los cuatro identificados. De los criterios más numerosos, “ingredientes con integridad”, “características locales” y “currículum diverso” fueron identificados como los tres más importantes.

El marco jerárquico de la experiencia de las vacaciones de cocina se puede utilizar para que las autoridades y los profesionales del turismo mejoren la calidad de la experiencia de los turistas y promuevan el turismo culinario en Taiwán. Según los resultados de la investigación, los participantes de las clases de cocina pueden concentrarse en la “experiencia de cocina” y enfatizar los elementos de “ingredientes con integridad”, “características locales” y r“currículum diverso” para las vacaciones de cocina.

este estudio ofrece información valiosa, proporciona una referencia para futuras investigaciones sobre turismo culinario. Este estudio también ofrece un marco teórico, que se puede utilizar para desarrollar vacaciones de cocina.

This article uses data from the 1993 Health and Lifestyles Survey of England to present findings on how, why and when people use cooking skills; where and from whom people learn these skills. The implications for policy are explored. The survey data suggests that socio‐economic status and education are associated with the sources of people’s knowledge about cooking. The first or prime source of learning about cooking skills was reported to be mothers; cooking classes in school were cited as the next most important by the majority of correspondents, with some class and educational variations. The importance of mothers as sources of information on cooking skills is observed in all social classes. What emerges is a population unsure of specific cooking techniques and lacking in confidence to apply techniques and cook certain foods. Women still bear the burden of cooking for the household, with four out of every five women respondents cooking on most or every day, compared with one in five men. This may be related to the large number of men who claim to have no cooking skills (one in five).