Project
SWITCH - Healthy and sustainable dietary behaviour among secondary school students
Our current global food system impacts both public and planetary health. Given the highly interrelated nature and causes of health and sustainability issues regarding food, a holistic approach to healthy and sustainable eating is required. Adolescents are an important target group to stimulate healthy and sustainable dietary behaviours, since adolescents start making autonomous dietary choices and dietary behaviours learned early in life track into adulthood.
The SWITCH-project explores how we can help and encourage teens to eat healthier and more sustainably, by means of the secondary school context. We explore this through three research lines:
- With an interdisciplinary expert panel, we explored the motivators and barriers for adolescents to adopt healthy and sustainable dietary behaviours.
- Through interviews with developers of school food programmes in the Netherlands, we explored what school food programmes are currently already implemented and what lessons can be learned from those.
- Together with adolescents at secondary schools throughout the Netherlands, we explored how they navigate their food environments. They also shared their ideas for facilitating healthy and sustainable diets among their age group.
This interdisciplinary project, running from September 2020 to June 2025, requires expertise from the disciplines of education, nutrition, health, sustainability and behaviour change. To obtain an interdisciplinary perspective, researchers from the chair groups of Education & Learning Sciences and Consumption & Healthy Lifestyles collaborate in this project.
SWITCH teaching material:
The research materials that were used to gather data among adolescents at secondary schools in the Netherlands are now available as teaching materials for teachers to implement in class. The materials (in Dutch), including a teacher’s manual, worksheets and conversation starters, can be found here:
- Docentenhandleiding SWITCH
- Gesprekskaartjes SWITCH
- Werkblad 1 SWITCH
- Werkblad 2 en 3 SWITCH
Publications:
- https://voedingnu.nl/artikelen/gezond-en-duurzaam-eetgedrag-volgens-experts
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666323026582?via%3Dihub
SWITCH in the media (in Dutch):
- Podcast ‘Oplossing Gezocht’, episode ‘Gezonde keuzes in de kantine’: https://www.nemokennislink.nl/publicaties/gezonde-keuzes-in-de-kantine/
- Video Faces of Science: https://youtu.be/OZRZYU4ydms
- Blogs on NEMO Kennislink: https://www.nemokennislink.nl/facesofscience/profielen/anouk-mesch/