Sustainable Eating in Schools: Increasing Student Participation Through Food Culture
Across Washington state, many schools participate in some form of the farm-to-school approach, where a percentage of school food is acquired from local farmers or school gardens. However, the extent to which students are interested in these sustainable foods varies on a case-by-case basis. I completed my internship with The Northwest School (NWS) by writing a curriculum that incorporates their urban farm into school operations. It was through this work that I gathered anecdotal observations about how the NWS engages students with the sustainable foods they were serving in their dining hall through school food culture. I was interested in how these anecdotal observations of food culture at the NWS would be reinforced by how other schools within WSDA’s Farm-to-School program engaged students with their food. The aim of this study was to determine what specific aspects of food culture may influence a student’s likelihood to consume the sustainable foods offered at their schools. I investigated this by sending surveys to over 50 schools in the program, looking for correlation between student perceptions of food and aspects of ‘food culture’ that were present. The results of the survey determined that the largest factors influencing a child’s enthusiasm towards sustainable school food options were knowledge available to them about the food they were eating and the amount of support that the school meal program receives from staff. These results are significant because they represent easily employable changes that schools may implement to influence children to eat healthier.
