Youth & Food in Transition: Exploring adolescents’ dietary behaviours for a healthy and sustainable future.

Healthy and sustainable dietary behaviours are of high importance for individual and planetary health; as eating behaviours are largely shaped at a young age, youth are considered a key target group to stimulate such dietary behaviours. There is growing attention worldwide for school food and nutrition programmes, as schools provide a setting to reach a diverse and large number of adolescents. Nevertheless, there is limited knowledge on effective school-based food and nutrition interventions. Hence, this thesis explored how we can better support and empower adolescents to adopt healthy and sustainable diets, within the Dutch secondary school context.

The first objective was to identify factors influencing healthy and sustainable diets among adolescents. First, experts in health, sustainability, and education participated in focus groups and a questionnaire to map and prioritise key factors on a socioecological model. They emphasized the importance of peers, the school food environment, social influences, food availability and autonomy. Next, 305 students from four secondary schools in rural and urban areas were consulted through questionnaires, a food environment mapping assignment, and focus groups. Adolescents described their homes as places where healthy and sustainable eating is easier, but perceived more freedom to make less healthy choices outside the home. They identified 18 factors influencing their food choices, including autonomy, the social function of food among peers, the influence of caregivers, and the offer and price of food. Together, these findings highlight the need for more supportive social and physical environments that promote healthy and sustainable options, while recognizing adolescents’ need to express autonomy.

The second objective was to analyse existing Dutch school food and nutrition programmes. First, interviews with programme representatives showed that many programmes focus on health, with some links to sustainability. Moreover, programmes were mostly designed for the classroom, with only some including other elements of whole school approaches (e.g., the school canteen). Secondly, the interviews revealed that many programmes focus on improving knowledge, skills and awareness. Besides, representatives emphasized the importance of using experiential and activating learning methods, and adjusting to adolescents’ realities. These findings suggest that programmes could be strengthened by integrating health and sustainability, moving beyond knowledge and skills, and using interactive learning methods that fit to adolescents’ realities.

The third objective explored adolescents’ own understanding and perceived importance of healthy and sustainable food, as well as their ideas to facilitate healthy and sustainable eating. Most students understood the concept of healthy eating and perceived it as important, while fewer students valued sustainability. Nonetheless, adolescents proposed many ideas for future interventions, mostly relating to changes in the food environment (e.g., offer, price) and the food system (e.g., more sustainable production, governmental subsidies).

In sum, this this thesis underscores that initiatives aiming to stimulate healthy and sustainable diets among adolescents should prioritise adolescents’ need for autonomy, social interactions, and an appealing and affordable food offer. Redeveloping school food programmes together with adolescents holds particular promise, to ensure engagement, motivation and relevance. Such efforts should involve collaboration with multiple stakeholders, following a whole school approach.

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Gezond en duurzaam eten zonder moeten: wat helpt wel?

Agenda – Sugar-sweetened beverages: consumption, purchasing behaviour, and opinions about policy measures in a nationally representative panel of Dutch secondary school adolescents – publication