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Food insecurity in the United Kingdom has been described as a ‘public health emergency’ which has been exacerbated by the onset and continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on research evidence and a reflective account from a current primary school teacher, this chapter highlights the multifaceted impacts of food insecurity for children in schools. It also draws attention to some important considerations around food, education and food-related interventions for practitioners supporting children in schools.

The study reports on a small‐scale survey of teenagers’ preferences for a selection of pre‐prepared foods sold by the school cash cafeteria, nutritional knowledge towards fat, attitudes to nutritional labelling of school food and their intended change in eating behaviour prompted by nutritional labelling. Results suggest that the provision of simple nutritional labelling information on school meals in cash cafeterias in secondary schools could have a positive influence on children’s choices of fat in school food and be a valuable educational resource to help in the long‐term aim of reducing fat consumption for the whole UK population.

The 2006 UK Government's school food standards has created an opportunity for schools to consider introducing highly nutritious, convenience snack alternatives, such as dried fruit, nuts and seeds. This has created anxiety among those who fear a consequent increase in incidence of allergic reactions in schools. The purpose of this paper is to present a controlled approach to secondary school vending, designed to minimise the risks of allergic reaction.

A consultation process with key organisations, together with an analysis of the vending process in schools has underpinned this work. The Health Education Trust, with experience of developing food and medicines policies in schools, has explored a practical solution to the common assumption that a nut ban in schools is the only way to offer protection to those students at risk.

A best practice guidance tool for “allergy‐aware” vending has been developed. It provides a framework for a common sense approach to tackling two potentially conflicting issues, identifying vending as a practical solution.

The toolkit is a free download, ready for pilot testing in secondary schools. This mutually beneficial approach to minimising risk is presented as a working draft. Revisions will be made following feedback from schools. This toolkit is not suitable for use in primary schools.

Achieving healthy eating goals for the teenage school population and safeguarding those pupils who have serious food allergies are important issues that merit mutual consideration. This paper explores the issues and proposes, for the first time a best practice guidance to both minimise risks and maximise health benefit.

With the increasing rise in obesity and diabetes in Mauritius, the school food environment in Mauritius is becoming a major concern. No study in Mauritius has so far examined the perspective of school head teachers pertaining to food items sold in schools. The purpose of this paper is to determine the primary school food environment in Mauritius.

A national postal survey of all the 212 public primary schools in Mauritius was undertaken. A pilot study was initially carried out, followed by administration of a mail questionnaire to all head teachers. The methodology included a validity testing phase. Frequency and associated Pearson's and Fisher's χ² tests were used for data analysis.

An 82.1 per cent response rate was obtained. The findings showed that a variety of food items were proposed to schoolchildren. Confectioneries were sold in 97.7 per cent schools while deep‐fried foods were on sale in 76.6 per cent schools although canteen guidelines are provided to schools. No school sold a complete meal. No statistical difference has been noted between food items sold in urban primary schools and those sold in rural primary schools (p > 0.05).

This national study highlights that many less healthy food choices are offered to Mauritian school children, thus undermining their health and nutrition status of Mauritian school children. There is need for urgent action to change the school food environment in order to prevent obesity among school children for a healthier Mauritius.

School and community gardens have long histories grounded in social justice. Currently there are advocacy movements calling for gardening programs that foster academics and equity movements through nutrition education, neighborhood green spaces and beautification, and ecological sustainability. While the authors contributed personal experiences and useful resources for those interested in school and community gardening, the authors primarily investigated multiple theories that embraced critical and ecological pedagogies in neighborhoods, schools, urban communities. The democratic movements of food security, removal of food deserts, and socioeconomic sustainability using applicable gardening programs were the driving forces behind this chapter.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a snapshot of secondary school food policy (SSFP) across the devolved nations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) to offer insights into a growing area of policy concern. The selected context of research is school food policy (SFP), an area of research which has received little attention in terms of policy approaches. The review is focused on 2010 to 2022.

This work combines interdisciplinary perspectives spanning across food policy, public health, psychology, education and sociology. This combination has merit as it offers different perspectives in terms of understanding SFP. The study was conducted between August 2021 and March 2022, using a desk-based review, analysing policies on food in secondary schools. Data collection was conducted through the Web using key search terms. The READ (Read, Extract, Analyse, Distil) approach was used as a systematic procedure to analyse policy and evaluation documents.

To all levels of government, it is recommended that a coherent policymaking approach be used to tackle SSFP improvements, to progress a whole school approach to food, supported by long-term dedicated resources while engaging children in SSFP development. For education departments, it is recommended that a food curriculum review, connected to school meals alongside a refocus on school food standards monitoring and reporting is crucial in serving the future generations. The current economic crisis has had an impact on public spending. Universal Free School Meals has been said to make an enormous difference to well-being.

The current findings suggest that researching SFP across nations has merit. There is a relative lack of focus on secondary schools, in light of England’s focus on the National Food Strategy (focus on children), post-pandemic, economic crisis – together this makes school food and food policy a topic of real urgency and importance. Lessons can both be learned, particularly in promoting healthier and more educationally inclusive school food practices. Research in this area can inform curriculum design and school food environment and system changes from the perspective of learnings around taking a whole school food approach to education.

Public food procurement (PFP) plays an important role in establishing agri-food systems. The study explores local food system stakeholders' response to PFP interventions by addressing the question of how PFP transforms agri-food systems and how this new agri-food ecosystem is governed.

This article presents and discusses a unique case study of Jeonbuk, a rural province in South Korea, which successfully transformed its agri-food system into an ecosystem through its sustainability-oriented innovations (SOIs) among born ecopreneur farmers. This case not only offers insights into a novel way to create value chains through legislative, executive and judicial governance but also extends the body of knowledge on agri-food systems by introducing the concept of an agri-food ecosystem.

The findings indicate the importance of the ecosystem governance and knowledge exchange among internal and external ecosystem stakeholders. In particular, PFP institutions play a crucial role in facilitating the operation of public meal centers and cooperation among actors.

Taking an ecosystem lens to agri-food systems may offer agricultural cooperatives a wider perspective and better understanding of the governance structures necessary to successfully execute public interventions. Lastly, the Korean case differs from other developing countries, but its role model qualities could help to implement successful school meal programs elsewhere.

This paper reviewed and applied a conceptual framework aimed at identifying the role of PFP institutions in the value chain governance by studying a case study of a South Korean local school meal program. The study further extends the agricultural cooperatives research and contributes to a better understanding of the role of a municipality and an agri-food intermediary in the governance process involving producers and kitchens.

The purpose of this paper is to examine Finnish ninth grade pupils’ (15-16 years) perspectives on hot school lunches and consider the potential of these perspectives as a resource for food and health education.

Data include observations, essays, and visually elicitated focus group discussions from a larger qualitative case study. Data were collected during the term 2012-2013.

Pupils considered the lunch break as their free time and valued discussions with friends. The taste of school food was important for them. Pupils solved contradicting expectations connected to school lunches through constructing social hierarchies, making compromises, and conforming to peers’ or general opinions. Desire for social belonging and independence were important justifications for breaking food-related rules.

Due to the focus on one school, further research needs to address contextual variation in different schools and age groups, as well as the viewpoint of teachers.

To genuinely engage pupils, potential contradictions between adults’ and adolescents’ perspectives need attention. Understanding food-related social determinants and justifications for food practices from pupils’ perspective are valuable pedagogical assets for teachers. Pupils’ speech and activities that counteract formal aims can be seen also as possibilities for dialogue, rather than merely problems to be changed by adults.

The paper describes how pupils’ perspectives to school lunch practices are in tension with the educational aims of school lunches, thus contributing to developing adolescent-centered food and health education in secondary schools.

The school fringe environment (peripheral 400 m buffer) offers an important opportunity for young people to obtain food and drink. There is international evidence to suggest socio-economic influence on food outlet availability and healthfulness within these environments; however the situation in the UK is unclear. The purpose of this paper is to describe food outlet provision (frequency and type) within primary school fringes across the spectrum of deprivation.

Ten primary schools in Newcastle upon Tyne were purposefully selected from a comprehensive list of all schools within the region. Two schools were chosen at random from each quintile of deprivation. A total of 400-metre buffer zones around schools were audited. School fringe food environments were classified using a Food Outlet Classification System. Access (i.e. frequency), and type of food outlets were compared to area level deprivation, obesity prevalence rates and area type.

Food outlet frequency was highest in the most deprived school fringe area. Convenience stores and takeaways represented the greatest proportion of total food outlets across all school fringe environments. More total food outlets were observed in fringes with above national average obesity prevalence rates for children.

UK case study approach limits widespread and international applicability.

Informs school, health and urban planning disciplines regarding current picture of UK school fringes.

Provides evidence in UK context that area deprivation and Census 2001 Supergroup class show significant correlations with school fringe food environment.

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.