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Objective: Previous research indicates that head teachers in Sweden frequently fail to see school lunch as part of the educational activities of a school. This study contributes to an understanding of how head teachers in Sweden perceive and experience current national policy intentions related to school lunch.

Design: Qualitative inquiry.

Setting: Ten municipal state schools in Sweden.

Method: Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 head teachers responsible for the compulsory education of 6- to 15-year-olds in state schools. Data from digitally recorded and transcribed interviews were thematically analysed.

Results: Head teachers primarily saw school lunch as a means to ensure pupils were fed and energised. Their focus tended to be on what followed after school lunch in the form of academic performance and mood, rather than the stated intentions of national school meal policy. Head teachers stressed the value of a free and nutritious school lunch for social equality, and the importance of good collaboration with food service managers and school meal personnel, despite the difficulty of achieving this.

Conclusion: This paper highlights a gap between head teachers' perspectives with respect to school lunch and official intentions stated in Swedish national school meals policy. The meanings head teachers saw as connected to school lunch were those of social equality and ensuring pupils were fed, rather than the wider potential envisioned by the authorities. This paper identifies factors that affect the possibility of realising national policy intentions for school lunch in Sweden.

Home Economics is a mandatory school subject for students in grade 1-9 in Swedish compulsory school. Students often work in groups when completing practical tasks. The aim of this study was to examine how students aged 14-16 experience such group work. How was the group work organized? What did the students think was most important when working in groups? A total of 22 individual interviews were conducted and then analyzed using thematic analysis. The results indicated that students preferred working with someone they knew well because it impacted communication, efficiency, a sense of fun and how much support they received from each other. Students expressed that the teachers organized the groups, but they organized the division of tasks in the group themselves. A limitation for the study is that it only includes students from three different schools. Nevertheless, it shows the importance of clarifying the purpose of group work in Home Economics.

This chapter highlights conditions for a pleasant school lunch based on experiences and perceptions from pupils, teachers, and head teachers. The empirical part of the study is based on a qualitative design using empathy-based stories, individual interviews, and a qualitative analysis of open comments from a questionnaire. Henri Lefebvre's theory of social production of space constitutes the theoretical framework, placing emphasis on how school lunch is experienced, perceived and conceived. The results show that these pupils, teachers and head teachers share the perception of school lunch as a space for socializing. Additionally, they show that conditions for a pleasant school lunch experience, chief among them the environment and time available, are not always favorable. The results presented in this chapter indicate that physical and organizational dimensions of school lunch need to be given more attention.

In Sweden, pupils eat tax-funded school lunches, often in the company of teachers. This article focuses on Swedish compulsory school grade (ages 7-15) teachers' (n = 823) perceptions of the school lunch in terms of intentions and daily practice. Analysis was based on written answers for an open-ended question that was part of a questionnaire focusing on teachers' attitudes towards school lunch as a pedagogical activity. It was found that participating teachers saw the potential of the school lunch, placing emphasis on the social interaction that takes place in the school restaurant and the possibility of meeting pupils in a more informal setting. However, a key outcome was teachers' depictions of the struggle between ideals and reality with the effect that teachers were not always provided with favourable conditions for school lunch interactions. It is important to address this in order to improve meal-time practices and the experience of school lunch.

The school lunch is often associated with food, nutrition and health while the social, physical, pedagogical and cultural dimensions of the school lunch situation have not been given as much attention. Sweden is one of few countries in the world where tax-funded school meals are served to all pupils in compulsory school. This thesis highlights the school lunch situation from the perspectives of pupils, teachers and head teachers in Sweden. The overall aim is to contribute a deeper understanding of how these school actors perceive and experience the school lunch situation.

The thesis is compiled from four papers. Paper 1 examine Nordic pupil’s perspectives on the healthiness of the meals in the context of school lunches. The remaining papers have been carried out in a Swedish context. Paper 2 examines pupil’s lived experiences of school lunch and how they relate to the social and physical dimensions of school lunch. Paper 3 examines teachers’ perceptions of the school lunch in terms of intentions and daily practice. Paper 4 examines head teachers’ (also called principals and school leaders) perceptions and experiences of school lunch. The main theoretical base is based on Henri Lefebvre’s theoretical framework of social production of space, applied mostly in Papers 2-4, together with an overarching conceptual framework of social constructivism, applied mostly in Paper 1. The thesis is based on a qualitative descriptive research design where the empirical part of the study is based on focus group discussions, empathy-based stories, a qualitative analysis of open comments from a questionnaire and in the fourth paper, individual interviews.

Through the four papers performed within this thesis it is clear that the normative, social, emotional, physical and organizational dimensions are central to the way that school lunch is experienced and perceived. The results show that pupils, teachers and head teachers share the perception of school lunch as a space for socializing and eating. The results further show that the perceptions and experiences of school lunch are negatively affected by the way the school lunch is framed and organized at both school and municipality level, and that favorable conditions for the school lunch situation do not always exist. The main concerns are centered on the meal environment, time-restrictions, the logistics and the different structures that pupils, teachers and head teachers have to adapt to. These challenges may affect the possibility of influencing practices and adherence to policies. The physical and organizational dimensions of school lunch need to be acknowledged: specifically, time management and the extent to which school restaurants are purposively designed and built. This is something that should be also taken in consideration when designing and building new school restaurants.

School lunch is in general regulated through policies and agendas constituted by the perspectives of adults. In this article, we focus on children’s lived experiences of school lunch with a special emphasis on emotions and how they relate to social and physical dimensions. This study draws on empathy-based stories written by 10–11 year olds (n = 171) from schools in Sweden. We identified three themes: Interaction and exposure, Routines and restrictions and Food and eating. The children’s lived experiences of school lunch and the emotions attached to them are closely associated and intertwined with the socio-spatial dimension of school lunch. A pleasant meal experience seems to require harmonization between the physical and social space whilst negative experiences contain tensions between them, something that actors working with school lunch and school lunch environments should take in consideration when resourcing, planning and scheduling school lunch, and also when designing new school restaurants.

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.

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.

Perspectives about health outcomes related to food among Nordic children

Linda 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 Olsson1

1Umeå 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, Finland

Preferred presentation type: Only Poster

Background 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