Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Highlights
Aims to understand nutritional constraints towards healthy and sustainable diets.
Task 7.2.1 will build on Task 7.1.5. with a twofold aim: a) develop common guidelines to facilitate the designing and testing procedures and goals of interventions; b) develop and test a set of tools for the measurement, monitoring and evaluation of eating and food related behaviours.
Development and application of educational and empowering models aimed at promoting healthy and sustainable diets (also including food waste reduction, fight against food neophobia), in specific target populations, with the support of advanced and innovative technological tools and innovative technological systems to evaluate users’ perception.
Building on task T7.2.3 and WPT7.3, and considering regional differences, this task will develop a set of policies aiming to promote a transition towards healthy and sustainable diets within schools focusing on local and culturally acceptable products and on the promotion of the values of the Mediterranean diet.
Model to elaborate acceptable dietary patterns with low environmental impact (M18)
Guidelines for the design and testing procedures of tailored interventions in different settings (M12)
Development of a fully functioning pilot model in one large public education institution (at least 1000 involved students) (M18)
Expansion and adaptation of the pilot to at least three more public contexts where prevalence of overweight and obesity is recognized (M30)
Strategic guidelines for the implementation of innovative nutrition and lifestyle educational models in public education institution (M36)
Through the improvement of the food offer and the implementation of a supportive environment, university cafeterias become a strategic setting to advocate healthy and sustainable nutrition in both university staff and students.
To influence food choices, there is a need to identify and understand determinants of people’s behavior focusing both on the interpersonal level and the food environment, which refers to the physical, economic, socio-cultural and policy conditions that shape access, affordability, safety, and food preferences and includes the social network, physical context, and policy-related factors. People more conscious of current environmental issues are more prone to shift toward more sustainable eating habits. Therefore, increasing students’ literacy about health and environmental impact of food systems seems to be a promising strategy for raising awareness and building the capacity to adopt food practices that enhance health and well-being. Research activities carried out in previous projects (NudIFood, EFSA EU-FORA Programme, Su-Eatable Life project Strength2Food project) will be used as references.
The research will involve different activities as reported below.