Johnson, S.

Food for Thought: A Qualitative Study Exploring Food Skills Education as a Determinant of Healthy Eating
Johnson, S., Raine, K., Storey, K., & Doherty, M.

Canada is witnessing growing recognition of the importance of food literacy; that is, knowing how to purchase, prepare, and eat healthy food. Research has shown these core competencies contribute to healthy eating. This finding is supported with the inclusion of certain competencies in Canada's Food Guide. A public health concern in Alberta is that junior high food skills education courses are voluntary. As a result, some Alberta youth may not be learning necessary food literacy skills. This research project aims to explore whether students and staff associate learning food skills with enhancing healthy eating behaviours. An objective is to investigate how gender and perceived academic value may impact a youth's perceptions and enrollment in food skills education courses. Another objective is to identify teachers and principals' understanding of food literacy and their perceived role in supporting students' dietary practices. The goal of presenting will be to share initial findings.

Focused ethnography was used as it allowed the researcher to explore a specific research question in a feasible time line. Data generation relied primarily on semi-structured interviews with ten students, three principals, and three food skills education teachers from the St. Albert Public School Board. Latent content analysis is the selected analytical tool as it is consistently done in conjunction with focused ethnographies. Through a cyclical process, primary patterns in the data will be identified, coded, categorized, and grouped into themes. A weakness is limited diversity as participants were all St. Albert residents.

Data collection was completed in June, 2019. Preliminary analysis is underway with key findings being available in November, 2019.

Findings may recommend adaptations to the food skills education curriculum and contribute to the discussion on mandating food skill courses in Alberta. It may also provide health promotion researchers, policymakers, and Health Canada insight into innovative healthy eating initiatives.