Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Participatory design of solutions towards healthy and sustainable univ...
Highlights
Unveils the economic determinants of food choice and management focusing both on consumers’ behaviour - also considering the perceived value of food - and on companies’ practices and decision processes.
Aims to widen current knowledge to grasp how dietary choices are affected by social and cultural elements including believes and norms, such as injunctive and subjective norms.
This task will also unveil psychological factors pertaining to health, positive, clinical psychology and psychosomatics affecting eating behaviours to broaden the current evidence and the intervention options to reduce eating related disorders (e.g., food neophobias) and promote wellbeing.
Aims to understand nutritional constraints towards healthy and sustainable diets.
Report on economic determinants of consumers’ sustainable and healthy food choices (M30)
Report on social determinants of consumers’ food management choices (M32)
Development of an expanded pilot model combining established and un-covered psychological/ psychosocial internal and external regulatory factors (M18)
Report on improved nutritional patterns (M30)
University canteens represent an opportunity of particular interest for sustainability efforts in the food systems domain. In this context, several studies have been conducted to assess sustainability practices and initiatives in university canteens in Emilia-Romagna. The main studies focused on the sustainability and impacts of university canteens, some of them are here mentioned.
A first example is the study by Panari et al. (2017), where the authors analysed the environmental and economic impacts of introducing a food waste reduction programme in the canteens of the University of Bologna. Moreover, another study by Savioli et al. (2021) assessed the sustainability performance of university canteens while other studies focused on specific aspects of sustainability in university canteens, such as energy efficiency and waste reduction. To add on this, a study by Prina et al. (2019) analysed the energy performance of the canteen at the University of Parma, while a study by Cucchiella et al. (2018) analysed waste management practices in canteens at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Studies investigating psychological factors involved in shaping eating habits in canteens and cafeteria settings are currently lacking in the literature, and an exploration of these factors is necessary for future development.
Overall, these studies highlight the importance of pursuing sustainability in university canteens in Emilia-Romagna, as well as the potential benefits of implementing sustainable practices among university students. Therefore, university canteens can play a crucial role in promoting sustainability and contributing to a more environmentally friendly future (Franchini et al., 2023; Krattenmacher et al., 2023).
The "Guidelines for the Sustainability of University Food Systems" formulated by the Municipality of Milan in the context of the Food Policy, mention collective catering as a key element in ensuring a balanced meal, especially for the most fragile population groups. In schools and universities, the objective of collective catering is to facilitate the adoption of correct healthy eating habits and, therefore, the prevention of chronic pathologies. For this reason, it is fundamental to understand students' perceptions of sustainability and wholesomeness of the meals offered by university canteens, in order to be able to plan the promotion of meals that are close to students' needs and that prevent incorrect choices in terms of health and sustainability of the diet.
The project aims to conduct an analysis of the needs and perceptions of the students of the universities of Parma and Bologna concerning the canteen service and their food consumption habits in the context of university canteen. This will lead to a participatory co-design process with university students for the identification and design of innovative solutions towards healthy and sustainable university canteens.
The first step is the analysis of general data about the Regional Agency for the Right to Higher Education of Emilia Romagna (ER.GO) and the university catering service. Collection of data regards: no. of canteens and affiliated establishments, menus with weights, no. of served meals, sales data, space distribution, food serving methods, and sensory-acoustic aspects. The data is collected partly from the study of the documentation supplied by ER.GO (including the tender specifications), and partly through field visits and interviews with different catering services directors/managers operating in the Northern Italy context. This activity makes it possible to define the research question for the survey addressed to students. A special element of this project is the interdisciplinary approach that includes nutritional, psychological, and socio-economic aspects in the analysis of university students’ food consumption habits and diets
Design and distribution of a survey based on selected items of the MOA (Motivation-Opportunity-Ability) conceptual framework, which allows understanding the complexity of individual and environmental factors influencing the adoption of analysed behaviours. According to the MOA, individual decisions and behaviours are largely influenced by habits, routines, knowledge including students’ culinary skills and the social and hedonistic aspects associated with food, which may or may not lead voluntarily to adopt a certain behaviour. In addition to these three dimensions of behavioural drivers, certain psychological factors (aspects such as mindful eating, levels of distress and well-being, and concerns about climate change) and socio-demographic factors (age, gender, income bracket, being out-of-town or not) may also have an influence on individuals' behaviours. Food consumption habits are investigated by asking students to self-report the food regimen adopted, including a low-calorie diet, the frequency of food consumption out of home, and by applying a healthy eating scale, as proposed by Tepper et al. (2021). More specifically, Eating-Related Eco-Concerns (EREC) are an arising construct in psychological research which is related to both eating behaviours and pro-environmental behaviours (Qi et al., 2022); similarly, Mindful Eating is an eating style that focuses on intentional awareness and interoceptive signals to improve the experience of the meal and is associated with healthy and sustainable eating (Fung et al., 2016). The aim of the study is to investigate students’ perceptions about healthy and sustainable diets, the level of adoption of such diets through the assignment of a healthy diet score, and their current and past ponderal status. Moreover, the prevalence of psychological factors (awareness, emotional and cognitive aspects) potentially linked to the adoption of certain dietary patterns; the motivations, opportunities and abilities that influence the choice of whether to use the canteen service will be investigated. This study uses a cross-sectional design in which a questionnaire is submitted to a sample of university students in Bologna and Parma. The study sample will include at least 380 students from the University of Bologna and 380 from the University of Parma, selected through convenience sampling and shared through a QR code that leads to a page where the questionnaire can be completed. The QR code will be spread through social media and social networks and using posters with the QR code affixed on appropriate notice boards (e.g. departments, associations, university canteens, libraries, etc.). The questionnaire can be completed both by respondents that often eat in university canteens and those who do not.
The last step of this project envisages the development of a participatory process for the inclusion of university students in the design and development of sustainable university canteens. The process will include the organisation of a programme of workshops and webinars directed at students. The objective of these workshops will be to train students about food sustainability in relation to university canteens. The final aim of these workshops is to train participants for a challenge for them to be able to develop innovative proposals for the improvement of university catering services in terms of economic accessibility, lower environmental impact, improved food quality and better social inclusion through participatory co-design activities. The call for solutions will be developed around several thematic areas that students will be asked to address with their proposals. In the end, the proposals will be evaluated and prized based on their innovative uptake, feasibility and effectiveness.
The expected results of the work carried out within this project are the following:
1. Level of adherence of students from Bologna and Parma to sustainable consumption habits and sustainable and healthy diets (identified with those linked to the Mediterranean diet) starting from a cluster analysis of a sample composed of university students
2. Identification of the most relevant socio-economic determinants when it comes to eating behaviours in university canteens;
3. Identification of the most relevant psychological determinants when it comes to eating behaviours in university canteens;
4. Identification of most relevant factors that lead students to choose to eat (or not) in university canteens of Bologna and Parma;
5. Level of satisfaction/perception of the current service offered by the catering services of university canteens in Bologna and Parma by students;
6. Innovative proposals and solutions for improving nutritional, social, economic and environmental sustainability of university canteens co-designed with students of Bologna and Parma through the challenge.
