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In Sweden, approximately a quarter of upper secondary school students leave school early or do not complete their studies with full grades. Structured leisure time activities have been associated with improved health, enhanced school performance, and future college attendance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to gain an understanding of how adolescents perceive the prerequisites for and the importance of meaningful leisure time. Qualitative interviews and focus groups with adolescents aged 16–19 were conducted and analyzed using content analysis. The results highlighted the importance of autonomy in leisure time, equal opportunities, and social relationships. Adolescents expressed that an optimal balance between leisure time and school can result in a circle of positivity, leading to better school performance, skills development, and overall well-being.

Background & Aim

Various initiatives have been taken and recommended to improve foodservice and nutritional care to hospitals patients. However, a broad description and analysis of what has been done to reach a better foodservice is lacking. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to map aspects highlighted as important in scientific articles pertaining to the improvement of foodservice for hospital inpatients.

Methods

A scoping review was conducted, including literature searches in four databases (CINAHL, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science) and an article selection process. Included studies were peer reviewed primary research written in English, published in 2000–2023, focusing on quality and improvement work in organisations and practice concerning provision of food and meals to hospital inpatients. Besides data charting of article characteristics, data were obtained for qualitative synthesis.

Results

Out of the 103 included articles, almost all (n=102) contained aspects associated with systems of different kinds. Foremost were systems for ordering, production, delivery and menus. Additionally, there were systems for structures, evaluation, and control. Other frequently occurring aspects concerned patients (n=84), e.g. considering their nutritional requirements, preferences, and cultural habits, as well as empowering patients with freedom of choice, information and guidance. Aspects concerning professional development, e.g. training, competence and teamwork were scarcer (n=46) and even fewer articles entailed aspects regarding leadership (n=21).

Conclusions

The broad spectrum of aspects that were identified may provide guidance to quality improvement of hospital foodservice. It also indicated research gaps in this field, foremost concerning relational competence and leadership.

A large proportion of school meals are wasted, leading to missed opportunities to nourish pupils, environmental impacts, and economic losses. This intervention study evaluated the long-term efficacy of three educational approaches (giving feedback to guests via plate waste tracker, pedagogic meals, and kitchen workshops) in reducing plate waste in school canteens across Europe (Austria, Germany, and Sweden). Following the intervention, a sustainability assessment was conducted, including environmental, economic, and social perspectives. The results showed that the plate waste tracker significantly reduced plate waste, by 17% (4 g/guest) from an already lower baseline level of 23 g/guest, while demonstrating long-term efficacy with sustained waste reduction up to 15 months post-implementation. This reduction lowered the environmental impacts (by 212 kg carbon dioxide equivalents per school & year) and nutrient losses (1018 MJ, 12 kg protein, and 4 kg fiber per school & year), while proving cost-effective with a payback period of only 1–2 years. Therefore, despite upfront costs and implementation barriers, food waste reduction measures in school canteens provide substantial long-term benefits across environmental, economic, and social dimensions, making them a valuable investment for sustainable school meal programs.

Background: Postsecondary students need to be able to handle self-regulated learning and manage schedules set by instructors. This is particularly the case with online courses, as they often come with a limited number of social reminders and less information directly from the teacher compared to courses with physical presence. This may increase procrastination and reduce timeliness of the students. Reminders may be a tool to improve the timeliness of students’ study behavior, but previous research shows that the effect of reminders differs between types of reminders, whether the reminder is personalized or general, and depending on the background of the students. In the worst cases, reminders can even increase procrastination.

Objective: The aim of this study was to test if personalized email reminders, as compared to general email reminders, affect the time to completion of scheduled online coursework. The personalized reminders included information on which page in the online material the participants ought to be on at the present point in time and the last page they were on during their last session. The general reminders only contained the first part of this information: where they ought to be at the present point in time.

Methods: Weekly email reminders were sent to all participants enrolled in an online program, which included 39 professional learners from three East African countries. All participants in the Online Education for Leaders in Nutrition and Sustainability program, which uses a question-based learning methodology, were randomly assigned to either personalized or general reminders. The structure of the study was AB-BA, so that group A received personalized reminders for the first unit, then general reminders for the rest of the course, while group B started with general reminders and received personalized reminders only in the third (and last) unit in the course.

Results: In total, 585 email reminders were distributed, of which 390 were general reminders and 195 were personalized. A Bayesian mixed-effects logistic regression was used to estimate the difference in the probability of being on time with one’s studies. The probability of being on time was 14 percentage points (95% credible interval 3%-25%) higher following personalized reminders compared to that following general reminders. For a course with 100 participants, this means 14 more students would be on time.

Conclusions: Personalized reminders had a greater positive effect than general reminders for a group of adults working full-time while enrolled in our online educational program. Considering how small the intervention was—adding a few words with the page number the student ought to be on to a reminder—we consider this effect fairly substantial. This intervention could be repeated manually by anyone and in large courses with some basic programming.

The 260 million publicly funded school meals served annually in Sweden generate 21.000 tons of food waste. At national level, school meals should meet the goal of food waste reduction, together with various other goals such as meeting nutritional requirements, being environmentally friendly and, most importantly, achieving high acceptance among schoolchildren. There is a preconception among kitchen staff that the most popular school meals drive food waste in Swedish school catering and that vegetarian dishes increase food waste, despite being less popular than meat options. By applying mixed methods, this study investigated possible goal conflicts between reduced food waste, high acceptance, and vegetarian options on the lunch menu. An overall aim was to gain knowledge on how lunch menus could be adapted for increased sustainability. Kitchen staff from 10 Swedish primary and secondary schools were interviewed to identify the most popular and unpopular meals, and food waste quantification data and lunch menus from 61 school canteens were analyzed. The results showed that, while the common perception of popular and vegetarian meals creating most waste was held by kitchen staff, it proved to be untrue. In fact, popular school meals and vegetarian options generated less waste than unpopular meals. A vegetarian paradox was detected in interviews, with vegetarian options considered unpopular but with several vegetarian options among the most popular dishes. Thus, school-catering units should stop serving unpopular meals and shift their focus to serving popular nutritious meals, including popular plant-based options, as part of efforts to make school meal schemes more sustainable.

Retailers' food waste, often consisting of edible food, could be reduced, while simultaneously tackling food insecurity, through surplus food donations to vulnerable groups. However, sustainability assessments of food donations covering all three sustainability perspectives are scarce, hampering decision-makers in prioritizing donation as a food waste management measure. This Swedish case study assessed the environmental, economic, and social aspects of surplus food donation and examined trade-offs between the different sustainability perspectives. Methods included life cycle assessment, net economic benefit calculation, social life cycle assessment based on food security questionnaires, and nutritional assessments. The results showed that food donation was a way to reduce food waste benefitting the environment and adding economic and social value, to vulnerable people in particular. Despite substantial rebound effects offsetting some potential environmental savings, food bag donations outcompeted anaerobic digestion as a food waste management option in terms of environmental mitigation effect. Regarding trade-offs, accrued savings causing the rebound effects generated important social value for the donation recipients, by relieving their personal finances. Private and public investment was required to fund the donation units, but positive economic value was generated through valorization of surplus food. Food bag donations also showed potential to alleviate recipients' food insecurity and to contribute positively to recipients' nutrition intake. To realize the potential of surplus food donation, policy measures should be better aligned with the waste hierarchy. Despite some trade-offs and inability to solve the underlying problems of food insecurity, food donations have great short-term potential to contribute to a more sustainable society.

Background: East African countries face significant societal challenges related to sustainable development goals but have limited resources to address these problems, including a shortage of nutrition experts and health care workers, limited access to physical and digital infrastructure, and a shortage of advanced educational programs and continuing professional development.

Objective: This study aimed to develop a web-based program for sustainable development with a focus on digital learning, digital health literacy, and child nutrition, targeting government officials and decision-makers at nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Ethiopia and Rwanda.

Methods: A web-based program—OneLearns (Online Education for Leaders in Nutrition and Sustainability)—uses a question-based learning methodology. This is a research-based pedagogical method developed within the open learning initiative at Carnegie Mellon University, United States. Participants were recruited during the fall of 2020 from ministries of health, education, and agriculture and NGOs that have public health, nutrition, and education in their missions. The program was conducted during the spring of 2021.

Results: Of the 70 applicants, 25 (36%) were selected and remained active throughout the entire program and filled out a pre- and postassessment questionnaire. After the program, of the 25 applicants, 20 (80%, 95% CI 64%-96%) participants reported that their capacity to drive change related to the sustainable development goals as well as child nutrition in their organizations had increased to large extent or to a very large extent. Furthermore, 17 (68%, 95% CI 50%-86%) and 18 (72%, 95% CI 54%-90%) participants reported that their capacity to drive change related to digital health literacy and digital learning had increased to a large extent and to a very large extent, respectively.

Conclusions: Digital learning based on a question-based learning methodology was perceived as a useful method for increasing the capacity to drive change regarding sustainable development among government officials and decision-makers at NGOs in Ethiopia and Rwanda.

Public food service organizations are large producers of food waste, which leads to greenhouse gas emissions and the waste of natural resources. The aim of the present article was to gain insight into reasons for food waste and possible solutions for lowering food waste in schools in Sweden. In order to do so, food waste quantification in school canteens in two Swedish municipalities and nine qualitative interviews with key actors were conducted. Both municipalities displayed a high degree of variation in food waste, but the common pattern was that serving waste constituted the largest fraction of food waste, followed by plate waste and storage waste, as well as a gradual decrease in food waste over time. Food waste was mainly a result of old, disadvantageous habits, such as overproduction due to forecasting difficulties, whereas new, better routines such as serving fewer options, better planning, and a less stressful environment are the key to lowering food waste. Because food waste varies from one case to the next, it becomes important to identify and measure the causes of food waste in each school in order to be able to establish tailor-made, conscious, and flexible food waste mitigation routines.

Enligt FN:s förklaring om de mänskliga rättigheterna har alla rätt till en levnadsstandard som är tillräcklig för hälsa och välbefinnande, vilket inkluderar tillgång till mat. Även i ett land som Sverige, som länge varit en välfärdsstat, drabbar matfattigdom delar av befolkningen. Vi undersöker i ett forskningsprojekt matdonationer ur ett hållbarhetsperspektiv. Studien innefattar näringsmässiga och andra sociala fördelar med matdonationer till socialt och ekonomiskt utsatta. Preliminära resultat visar att matdonationer kan bidra till en säkrare tillgång till mat. Samtidigt får mottagarna pengar över att lägga på andra nödvändigheter, till exempel ytterligare matinköp, sjukvård, läkemedel, kläder, skor och andra konsumtionsvaror. Matdonationer har därför potential att bidra till en social hållbar utveckling för personer som lever i matfattigdom.

Surplus food redistribution can be a way to relieve co-existing food insecurity and food waste. The food waste hierarchy ranks surplus food donations for human consumption as the next best strategy, when food waste cannot be prevented. However, the effectiveness of food donation in terms of the amount consumed, or food donation as a food waste management measure have rarely been assessed. The few studies conducted to date report substantial environmental savings, but the results may be sensitive to assumptions regarding substituted food. Rebound effects are also not included, but are likely to offset environmental savings from food donation. Therefore, this study investigated the effectiveness, carbon footprint, and rebound effect of a food donation system run by a charity in Sweden, and compared the results with those of anaerobic digestion. Multiple analytical methods were used, including material flow analysis, life cycle assessment, questionnaire, and 24-hour dietary recall. In the life cycle assessment, carbon footprint of substituted products were credited to the overall results using a system expansion. In addition, direct and indirect rebound effects associated with re-spending of substitution-related monetary savings were included. The results revealed a complex but effective network aimed at salvaging as much of the redistributed food as possible, with 78% of redistributed food eaten, but there was also a substantial rebound effect, offsetting 51% of potential carbon emissions savings from food donation. Nonetheless, the net result of food donation was almost twice the climate benefit of anaerobic digestion (-0.40 vs. -0.22 kg CO2e/FU), supporting the food waste hierarchy.