FoodACT: Investigating the Impact of a School Garden Intervention on Children's Food Literacy, Climate Literacy, School Motivation and Physical Activity

Overview

The purpose of this study is to investigate the efficacy of a schoolgarden intervention on pupils food literacy, climate literacy, schoolmotivation and physical activity. The study will also investigate the contextual characteristics in the garden using systematic observations and the pupil´s experience of the intervention with focus-groups interviews.

Globally, the prevalence of obesity and severe obesity among children and youth is rising. Inactivity and unhealthy diet are often associated with obesity which can lead to detrimental health outcomes such as cardiovascular disease and type-2 diabetes. Schools are considered a key setting for promoting children and adolescents' food literacy, climate literacy, physical activity and to improve their mental and social health. Interventions in schools have a broad impact because all children spent the majority of their waking hours in school independent of their socio-economic- and cultural background. FoodACT aims to invetigate an well-established schoolgarden intervention on pupils food literacy, climate literacy, schoolmotivation and physical activity. School gardens create an enabling environment for increasing student's food literacy and climate literacy, where an active component is that the pupils cultivate and prepare their own crops through a program that extends through nine months and therefore becomes an integrated part of the pupils schooling. The children's' physical activty is affected without it being the focus of the school garden programs. Pupils get up from the chair in the classroom, use active transportation for example by foot or bike to the school garden and are activated by work such as digging, lifting and watering their own plot. Some school garden interventions also invovle and activate the pupils families, which increases the sustainability of the interventions effects. Previous research has stated that schools are considered a key setting for promoting children and adolescents' food literacy and physical activity and to improve their mental and social health. Relocating teaching to an outdoor nature setting, which is a central ingredients of school garden interventions, has shown to be positively related to increased physical activity in both boys and girls during the school day. Furthermore, contextual and experience related characteristics such as tasks, motions, associations and interactions realted to the school garden has not been captured. Therefore, the aim of FoodACT is to investigate how a school gardening intervention impact pupils food literacy, climate literacy, school motivation and physical activity with a special focus on children with low socio-economics in a controlled design. In 2023 a pilot-study will be performed to test and adjust the outcome measures.