Health and Sustainability in Public Meals—An Explorative Review

Abstract

The world is facing a number of challenges related to food consumption. These are, on the one hand, health effects and, on the other hand, the environmental impact of food production. Radical changes are needed to achieve a sustainable and healthy food production and consumption. Public and institutional meals play a vital role in promoting health and sustainability, since they are responsible for a significant part of food consumption, as well as their “normative influence” on peoples’ food habits. The aim of this paper is to provide an explorative review of the scientific literature, focusing on European research including both concepts of health and sustainability in studies of public meals. Of >3000 papers, 20 were found to satisfy these criteria and were thus included in the review. The results showed that schools and hospitals are the most dominant arenas where both health and sustainability have been addressed. Three different approaches in combining health and sustainability have been found, these are: “Health as embracing sustainability”, “Sustainability as embracing health” and “Health and sustainability as separate concepts”. However, a clear motivation for addressing both health and sustainability is most often missing.

Traces of Sustainability in Food Practices in a Norwegian Kindergarten

“…In line with other studies where meals in public institutions are identified as an arena for health promotion as well as a way to achieve social equality (Höijer et al, 2020;Illøkken et al, 2021), our study confirmed that food practices in kindergartens could contribute to the sociocultural sustainably through food in ECEC. Building on the evidence that children's eating patterns and food preferences are established early in life (Birch & Fisher, 1998), and seeing as many eating behaviors (such as food variety and intake) are consistent over time (Nicklaus & Remy, 2013), the findings of our study suggest that kindergarten has the potential to facilitate an environment that helps children to develop long-lasting habits and skills, as well as good relationship with food.…”

The Promotions of Sustainable Lunch Meals in School Feeding Programs: The Case of Italy

“…School feeding programs are considered a target for sustainability actions. Indeed, a recent explorative review [ 15 ] claimed that schools and hospitals are the most dominant arenas where both health and sustainability have been addressed in order to reach a more holistic perspective on food consumption of public meals. In Spain, a feeding program was designed to develop a one-month healthy and sustainable lunch plan for primary school children [ 11 ] that provides a reduction of 13–24% of GHGE and 10–15% of the cost while maintaining the nutritional quality.…”

Political Imaginations of Community Kitchens in Sweden

“…Public meals aimed at relieving economically poor strata from stigmatised food aid, primarily through ‘the modern school lunch’ (Gullberg, 2006). Public meals have now become integral to Swedish welfare politics (Sporre et al, 2017); more than three million meals are served daily in Swedish preschools and schools, hospitals and care institutions (Höijer et al, 2020). Yet, scholars continue to illuminate how the Swedish welfare system is incomplete (Inghe and Inghe, 1968; Swärd, 2017).…”