An International Congress analyses in Barcelona the role school canteens play in children’s food education
School canteens have become an important service not only for childrenʼs nutrition but also for their conviviality and socialization, to learn about taste, habits and values, and even to detect and prevent possible food related diseases. The International Congress on Eating in Schools will focus on the multidimensionality of school canteens and from 29 May to 1 June will gather, in Sant Benet de Bages and in Barcelona, researchers from the social and health sciences, teachers, school administrators, canteen monitors, kitchen personnel, catering companies and politicians from the fields of education and health. During the congress there will be workshops and talks to analyse academic and social issues, for example, the responsibility of the people and factors involved in a school canteen or how the economic crisis is affecting this service.
School canteens have become an important service not only for childrenʼs nutrition but also for their conviviality and socialization, to learn about taste, habits and values, and even to detect and prevent possible food related diseases. The International Congress on Eating in Schools will focus on the multidimensionality of school canteens and from 29 May to 1 June will gather, in Sant Benet de Bages and in Barcelona, researchers from the social and health sciences, teachers, school administrators, canteen monitors, kitchen personnel, catering companies and politicians from the fields of education and health. During the congress there will be workshops and talks to analyse academic and social issues, for example, the responsibility of the people and factors involved in a school canteen or how the economic crisis is affecting this service.
The congress is organised by the Food Observatory of the UB (ODELA), an interdisciplinary and interuniversity research team composed of researchers devoted to analyse and understand eating behaviours from a historical, social, economic and cultural perspective; the Alícia Foundation, dedicated to technological innovation in cooking, as well as to improve the eating habits and assess our gastronomic heritage, and the Institute for Research on Nutrition and Food Safety of the UB, promoted by research groups belonging to the faculties of Pharmacy, Biology, Chemistry and Geography and History and to UB-affiliated centres and hospitals linked to the UB, in order to investigate, train and provide services to sectors related to the food industry.
The congress organisers believe that school canteens are a privileged place for those fields interested in studying the eating habits of an important segment of our population. At the same time, they aim to provide a space for presenting and discussing projects undertaken to date that help to shape a more accurate characterization of actual food consumption practices of the school population, and the reasons for them. The congress also intends to establish a better evaluation and development of food services offered in schools, as well as to improve health and general well-being of children and adolescents.
The programme will begin on 29 May with a pre-congress session at the headquarters of the Alícia Foundation, in Sant Fruitós de Bages, when several technical workshops aimed at cooks, catering managers, dieticians, etc. will be take place.
On 30 May the sessions will be held at La Pedrera (Provença, 261, Barcelona). The director of the Food Observatory, Jesús Contreras, will open the congress. Afterwards, Teresa Robledo, from the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition, will give the keynote speech. On the first day, there will also be a round table entitled “Knowing, understanding and action: research and diagnostics of school canteens” and a plenary session by Bent Egberg Mikkelsen, from the Aalborg University (Denmark), and Najla Veloso Sampaio, from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
On 31 May there two round tables will take place, entitled “The school as a place of food learning” and “School canteens and the variety of factors involved: shared or delegated responsibilities?”. On the last day there will be the round tables “The school and its canteen: experiences and various alternatives”, “The agribusiness and social responsibility in school feeding” and “Special circumstances, particular foods”, and a debate entitled “How does the crisis affects school canteens?”. On 1 June, Valérie Adt, from the Edgar Morin Centre in Paris, will give the talk “Cantines, transmission culturelle, rythmes et sociabilités alimentaires”.
Apart from the sessions held at La Pedrera, the Facutly of Geography and History of the UB will also hold communications on different topics, such as rights and responsibilities of school feeding, the importance of the culinary factor in this area or the promotion of healthy eating in schools, among many others. The congress will conclude with a speech by Benjamín Caballero, lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University in the United States.