NRC 2018 Forum - UNPACKING FOOD LITERACY

To start off the day, you will hear from two ‘food literacy champions’ who will share their insights on the potential for food literacy to empower people of all age groups to live well and inspire Forum attendees to take action on implementing strategies to improve food literacy in their area of work.

Why Food Literacy Matters: Implementation and Impact in Elementary Schools (Bary Finley)
Barb will share what she has learned during 12 years of programming in Vancouver schools.

Why does Food Literacy Matter? (Gwen Chapman)
Food literacy matters because everyday food practices matter. For those of us who work in the nutrition field, and indeed for many Canadians, the health implications of what people eat are top of mind. In this context, food literacy matters because it can be a tool to help people make healthier food choices, combating the diet related health problems that appear to be rampant in Canada and around the globe. But everyday food practices also interconnect with other significant issues of our time such as environmental sustainability, global hunger, and ethical issues like animal welfare and the quality of livelihoods of people who work in the food system. Conceptualized broadly, food literacy strengthens people’s knowledge about and ability to take action across all components of the food cycle, including food production, distribution, preparation, consumption, and waste handling. Food literacy matters because it holds the potential to transform the ways people act within the food system, bringing about positive change in critical areas.

Theme: Unpacking food literacy in a complex food environment
This session will explore how food literacy as a concept, skill set, health promotion strategy and educational tool can help people navigate a complex and ever changing foodscape. 

Our foodscape has never been more complex and confusing. Food is cheaper than ever and “nutrition” discoveries and branded “functional foods” promise to make life faster, easier and healthier. In the midst of this “cheap” abundance, too many Canadians are food insecure, afraid of food, and have nutrition-related illness. Sales of “ultra-processed” foods have skyrocketed and “Skip the Dishes” has exploded.  Opportunities to learn about food, nutrition and “cooking” are increasingly the domain of “food TV” and corporate “big food” while school-based programs are under threat. This talk will discuss “food literacy” as a concept, skill set, health promotion strategy and pedagogical tool. We will also examine whether food literacy is merely moral panic in our changing world, simply a re-branding of unexamined nutrition messages, or holds the potential to transform our relationships with our selves, our families and our communities.

Theme: Unpacking food literacy in a complex food environment
Hear about the research that has been conducted by the Locally Driven Collaborative Project (LCDP) to conceptualize and measure food literacy in Ontario.

In 2016, the LCDP Healthy Eating team of public health practitioners conducted a scoping review and identified 15 attributes of food literacy organized into five categories. This work has been published in the Journal of Public Health Nutrition. A subsequent Delphi was implemented involving several rounds of questions to obtain opinion from practitioners and experts working in food literacy on the validity, relevance and importance of the food literacy attributes most appropriate in the public health context (this study has been submitted for publication).

Currently, the LDCP team is working with a research team from the University of Toronto to develop and test a tool to measure food literacy with high-risk groups of youth (aged 16 to 19 years), young parents, and pregnant women (aged 16 to 25 years). The LDCP has had several opportunities to work collaboratively both nationally and internationally to provide input on the development of other food literacy indicators and questions.

In this session, attendees will hear about policies, tools and resources at various levels (e.g., federal, provincial, municipal and other organizational settings) targeted to consumers and health intermediaries that impact food literacy.

This presentation will provide a mix of scientific findings, evidence-informed recommendations, and practical considerations about population-level food literacy interventions and conducting research with government stakeholders. Specifically, the presentation will examine:

1. The national policy landscape in Canada as it pertains to food literacy and opportunities to evaluate the impacts on dietary practices. (Vanderlee)
2. Findings from the Skills Study evaluating a mass media campaign to promote food literacy. Recommendations for cross-sector partnerships and impacts of the Eat Well Campaign (Food Skills) on Canadian parents will be discussed. (Fernandez)

SESSION TITLE: Unpacking the Potential for Policy Initiatives to Advance Food Literacy for All

Facing an increasingly complex food environment, children find it difficult to evaluate the health aspects of food packaging. Media literacy programs aim to teach children to identify, assess and evaluate messages from various sources, and this talk argues for a combination of media literacy and nutrition literacy in order to understand packaged foods. Detailing some of the challenges children face in understanding packaged foods, Dr. Elliot will present some key content modules from two evidence-based Media Literacy & Food Marketing Lesson Plans developed for elementary and junior high school children, and discuss the need and implications for such programming.

Objectives:

1. Communicate the value of, and evidence base for, Media Literacy and Food Marketing education for children
2. Detail the gaps of knowledge children and adolescents demonstrate when interpreting interpret packaged food products, and outline some of the key content modules from the evidence-based Media Literacy &Food Marketing Lesson plans
3. Briefly outline evaluation protocol for the lesson plans

The purpose of this session is to share learnings in the delivery of food literacy programming in various community settings, including enablers and barriers for success, sustainability, and impact.

FoodFit – the key ingredients for a successful health literacy program for low-income participants
(Alissa Vietth) Community Food Centres Canada (CFCC) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) are mid-way through a 5 year multi-sectoral partnership project to develop and deliver FoodFit programs through program delivery partner organizations across Canada by 2021. The overall objective of the program is to promote healthier lifestyles for low-income community members with a focus on health literacy, food skills, group physical activity, and social supports. This presentation will share some emerging evaluation results and important components of the program curriculum and delivery model that are helping thousands of Canadians eat healthier, move more, and make new friends.

Evaluation of the Community Food Advisory Program (Chwen Binkley)
The Community Food Advisor (CFA) program has been running in Hamilton since 1996. The Program supports the healthy food systems initiatives and food strategy goals. While the program is an anecdotal success there has not been a formal evaluation to determine whether the program achieves its goals and objectives. An evaluation was conducted to explore the views of the program participants, the stakeholders and the CFA volunteers regarding their experiences with the program and perceptions of the continued need for the program.

Only bite off what you can chew: Making food literacy evaluation work for you (Diana Chard)
Hastings Prince Edward Health has been offering food literacy classes since 2015. Cooking with the Basic Shelf is a six week series of classes intended for adults living on low incomes and/or with limited food skills. The goal of the classes is to increase the confidence of participants in the kitchen, encourage trying new foods and new recipes, and to develop food literacy. Since the classes began they have been evaluated and revised based on the evaluation. This presentation will share lessons learned from the evaluation process.

Food as Medicine: Farm as Therapy: A multi-disciplinary approach to planning food-based social enterprise for Toronto Rehabilitation Institute (Adeline Cohen)
The UHN Urban Farm social enterprise is inspired by the transformation of hospital food environments to foster healthy behaviours and by the changing philanthropic landscape in Canada. A 18-month feasibility study and business planning process involved patients, clinical and administrative staff of the University Health Network (UHN) in co-creating a social enterprise that is financially independent of hospital funding while creating opportunities for patients to engage in therapeutic gardening and cooking programs.  The project aims to improve patient transition into home and community care by supporting research and therapy geared toward improving physical and mental health of Toronto Rehab patients.

The purpose of this session is to share learnings in the delivery of Indigenous food literacy programming including enablers and barriers for success, sustainability, and impact. 

Make It Sacred: Making healthy choices (Kathleen Laforme & Crystal Bomberry)
We will explain how Indigenous Diabetes Health Circle (IDHC) heavily emphasizes the vital importance of traditional foods in achieving health and wellness in Indigenous communities.  By relying on sacred inherent knowledge, we take an active role in decolonizing our perceptions of what food and sustenance really is.  We do this by staying connected with our elders and sharing knowledge, tools, and resources that serve as a reminder of the good health of our ancestors.  A key factor in seeing better health outcomes across our nations is cultivating an understanding of how good holistic health is linked to traditional knowledge, traditional food sources, and mindful eating practices.

“Healthy Roots” program of returning to a Haudenosaunee diet: process and clinical outcomes from a pilot study on Six Nations of the Grand River (Kelly Gordon & Russell de Souza )
Researchers will share  their experiences with the "Healthy Roots" community initiative from conception through pilot testing and results. The initial purpose of the Healthy Roots initiative was to increase community and individual wellbeing by encouraging Six Nations of the Grand River community members to incorporate Haudenosaunee foods and traditional activities into their daily lives. This was a holistic approach to improving physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing towards growing stronger roots in each the individual and within the community.

Cooking in the Classroom - Implementing Student Nutrition Programs in northern remote First Nations communities  (Kanina Terry)
In Kanina’s role as the FNSNP coordinator, she supports the school nutrition programs running in 12 First Nation communities north of Sioux Lookout - 9 of which do not have all-season road access. Attendees will hear about how Kanina has supported these communities with menu planning, resource sharing, ordering support, transportation planning and school visits, among other duties. Kanina will also share insights from implementing a “Cooking in the Classroom” program during school visits to engage students in the enjoyability and importance of cooking.

The purpose of this session is to share learnings in the delivery of food literacy programming for children and youth, including enablers and barriers for success, sustainability, and impact. 

Growing Chefs! Headquarters - HQ Field Trips (Andrew Fleet)
HQ Field Trips provide a unique learning environment in which Grade 4-8 students can gain perspective and confidence in their place within a sustainable food system. Through fun, targeted activities, students gain hands-on experience with multiple components of a whole food system including growing, cooking, serving, and disposing of food products. The program is intended to foster critical thinking by challenging students to consider the impacts of their food choices on personal/community health, the natural environment, and global and local economies.

F2S: Ontario Digs In! -- Raising the Salad Bar (Shiba Anjum)
Farm to School: Canada Digs In! (F2SCDI) is a 3-year, evidence-based, multi-sectoral chronic disease prevention partnership led by Farm to Cafeteria Canada that is scaling up efforts to get healthy local foods into the minds, and onto the plates of students across Canada. A component of this initiative is to offer $10,000 Farm to School Salad Bar grants to schools in 5 provinces across the country. In Ontario the lead partner on this initiative is Sustain Ontario. Shiba will give an overview of the F2SCDI initiative and will share how food literacy is being integrated at Oakwood Public School, one of the 32 F2S program grantee schools in Ontario.

Food Literacy for Lunch (Susan Wright)
In Toronto, approximately 200,000 students are provided a healthy meal at school every day. At summerlunch+ we fill the gap in July and August by providing healthy, cooked-from-scratch meals to children in neighbourhoods who attend free summer camps. We teach food skills through daily lessons and hands-on food experiences, such as gardening, cooking with us in the kitchen and making DIY lunches. In this session we will introduce you to summerlunch+ and Olivia Cupido will talk about our Food Literacy Hub. In our first 3 years we delivered over 10,000 hours of food literacy education.

Teen2Chef: Development and Evaluation of a Food Skills Program for Adolescents (Mara Alexanian-Farr)
Improving food skills and nutrition literacy during adolescence may help prevent diet-related chronic disease in later life. In adults, adequate cooking skills predict better nutritional outcomes throughout the lifespan, including more frequent vegetable intake, food preparation, and family meals, and less frequent fast food consumption. Enhancing these skills during adolescence may lead to earlier adoption and utilization, with improved behaviour change. Therefore, a 10-week interactive Cooking and Food Skills program, Teen2Chef, was developed for 13-18 year olds in collaboration with dietitians from Canada’s children’s hospitals. This program will be evaluated for usability, content, participant knowledge, and behaviour change.

In this session, attendees will hear from a variety of experts about food literacy initiatives for helping children and families eat well. 

Back to Basics: Increasing Family Food Literacy in 7 steps (Nishta Saxena)
We are spending time as Canadians doing EVERYTHING except prepare food for ourselves and our families. We take a look at recent stats and reasons for this shift, such as social media influence, and discuss practical ways you can approach increasing your family’s food literacy starting today. Making time to help your family understand food systems, how to shop and prepare food and reduce food waste are life-skills. As parents and educators and nutrition professionals, sometimes all three, we must take on this responsibility; lets make it simple, fun and healthy.

Rainbow Food Explorers: A Colourful Sensory Approach to Food Education in Early Years 
(Janet Nezon, Rainbow Plate)
Join us for a taste of Rainbow Plate’s sensory-based food education programs for young children. Step into our colourful world to learn about the research evidence behind our approach, the key ingredients in what we do, and how food education can and should be woven throughout the fabric of early childhood experience.  

Associations between parental food literacy and fast food purchases among families with young children (Angela Wallace)
Approximately 60% of all food expenditures amongst Canadians come from foods, snacks, and beverages purchased at restaurants and fast food outlets. Food purchased at fast food outlets is typically calorie-dense and nutrient-poor, which may adversely impact health outcomes over time. Lower levels of food literacy, including meal preparation skills, food knowledge, food safety, and cooking confidence have been found to be associated with higher consumption of fast foods among adults. Our study assessed what food literacy factors are most predictive of the amount of the amount of money families with young children spend on fast food items.

In this session, attendees will hear from a variety of experts about food literacy initiatives for helping children eat well at school. 

Lessons from the Project CHEF Kitchen: How Vancouver school children discover wholesome food and confidence in the kitchen (Barb Finley)
Hear about Project CHEF, an experiential, curriculum-based school program aimed at children in kindergarten to grade seven that teaches students about healthy food: where it comes from, what it tastes like, how to prepare it and how to enjoy sharing it around a table.

Building food literate citizens through hands-on whole food cycle education: The power of partnerships (Gwen Chapman)
Gwen Chapman will share the experiences and successes of Think&EatGreen@School, (a partnership between the University of British Columbia, the Vancouver School Board, Vancouver Coastal Health and local non-profit groups), which promoted hands-on educational activities to enhance students’ food literacy. Key strategies including providing professional development, networking opportunities, and seed funding for teachers, as well as linking schools with university students, community activists and local food educators.

Food Literacy in the Ontario Secondary School curriculum (Diane O'Shea)
While the Ontario Family Studies curriculum has provision for food literacy in food/nutrition courses, these courses remain optional. This session will briefly examine curriculum expectations and explore some of the issues around mandatory food education

In this session, attendees will hear from a variety of experts about food literacy initiatives happening in various community settings.
 
What is the role of nutrition standards in food literacy programming? (Brittney Urban)
To prepare for a revision of Region of Waterloo Public Health food literacy programming, dietetic interns analyzed recipes from five Ontario food literacy programs to find a program using recipes meeting nutrition criteria outlined in the “Nutrition Standards for Workplaces.” Various nutrition standards are supported by Public Health; however, many recipes being used in public health programming do not meet these standards. Further discussion is needed on the role of nutrition standards in programming.

Inspiring Collective Community Action: "Lead the Change" Award and Incentive Program
(Nadine Devin & Christine Callaghan)
The Healthy Kids Community Challenge (HKCC) of Middlesex County developed a program coined “Lead the Change” with the objective of inspiring multiple organizations across sectors in the County to collectively create healthier eating environments.  A ‘Lead the Change’ recognition award and incentive program was developed to facilitate this process. This engagement strategy facilitated significant environmental-level change over the duration of The Challenge. Our experience demonstrated that meaningful change can happen when communities are encouraged to collectively adopt healthier environmental practices as part of a larger community-wide effort.

Food Literacy: An Agent for Community Engagement (Ruby Samra)
One of the overarching goals of the Hamilton Food Strategy is to increase food literacy to promote healthy eating and empower all residents. During this session participants will learn about the Hamilton Food literacy Network (HFLN) and Hamilton’s first Food Literacy Month, possibly the first one in Canada. The objective of Hamilton’s Food Literacy Month is to engage residents through the celebration of food as central to both culture and community, and to showcase the food literacy partners’ food inspired events through this collaborative action.

Unpacking innovative strategies to shift attitudes, social norms and the food environment
Food literacy is so much more than just food skills and cooking. Learn how different population-based strategies can help shift attitudes and social norms about food and healthy eating.

Food literacy in populations can be supported by creating healthy food environments. Healthy food environments can help enable people to practice their food literacy knowledge and skills. Using examples from a practice-based research study in recreation facilities, Eat Play Live, this presentation reviews why environmental approaches to food literacy are an important and how we influenced food literacy and food environments in a community setting through a capacity-building intervention.

Unpacking innovative strategies to shift attitudes, social norms and the food environment
Food literacy is so much more than just food skills and cooking. Learn how different population-based strategies can help shift attitudes and social norms about food and healthy eating.

The Guelph Family Health Study is a family-based study designed to identify early life predictors of chronic disease and examine the influence of interventions and policies on health behaviours among families with young children.  In this session, Dr. Haines will:

1. Highlight the Integrated Knowledge Translation (iKT) strategies used to engage key knowledge users, i.e., parents, health professionals and policy makers, in the development and implementation of the Guelph Family Health Study, and
2. Describe the strategies used to enhance food literacy among the parents and children participating in the study.

SESSION TITLE: Unpacking innovative strategies to shift attitudes, social norms and the food environment

Food literacy is so much more than just food skills and cooking. Learn how different population-based strategies can help shift attitudes and social norms about food and healthy eating.

Diet quality is a modifiable risk factor for several critical health conditions. To promote healthier eating among Canadians, our multidisciplinary collaboration developed a novel smartphone app called SmartAPPetite which provides users with credible information about local foods (e.g., seasonality, nutrition, preparation, vendors) to ‘nudge’ users to make healthier, smarter choices about what they buy and consume.

This presentation will report on:

1. The background research (e.g., focus groups, pilot studies, food environment audits) informing the development of SmartAPPetite,
2. findings of a pilot intervention study with adolescents in London, Ontario, and
3. ongoing research.
   

Unpacking innovative strategies to shift attitudes, social norms and the food environment
Food literacy is so much more than just food skills and cooking. Learn how different population-based strategies can help shift attitudes and social norms about food and healthy eating.

Concerns about unhealthy eating habits, have resulted in the framing of food literacy initiatives, aimed at reducing the burden of obesity and chronic disease. We make the argument for reframing food literacy to explicitly include the context of, not only our current food environment, but also of the weight-centred discourse and fat-phobic culture that influence food, nutrition and health messaging. Food literacy should be framed as a strategy to improve self-efficacy and confidence, to nurture our natural abilities with feeding and eating, and support mental health promotion through responsive feeding, age-appropriate developmental principles, and body positivity; not to address obesity.