Browsing by Author "Hämäläinen, Liisa"

Aims. Eating is an important part of well-being during the work day. Working at school and the new school eating recommendations advise teachers to eat school lunch with students and show example to them. Home economics as a subject affect eating of home economics teachers as there is often prepared food at lessons and the teacher acts as a food educator. There are only few studies about teachers eating during work day and the earlier school lunch studies are focused on students' perspective. The aim of this study was to find factors that effect on home economics teachers' eating during work day and bring out the teachers' experiences about eating. The purpose was also to find out home economics teachers' views about connection between their own eating and food education. Methods. The data of this qualitative study was collected by half-structured theme interviews. In total 12 home economics teachers from different parts of Finland participated in this research. Interviews were executed in November and December 2016. The data was analysed with qualitative content analysis and narrative analysis. Theoretical framework of this study consisted of food choice and food behavior models and previous studies from workplace eating. Results and conclusions. The results followed earlier studies about food choice. The results of this study showed that eating time, food cost, food environment, convenience, food taste and quality, well-being during work day and school as a working place were the factors had influence on eating of the home economics teachers. The participant teachers of this study experienced that eating was quite easy to fit to the work day rhythm and the teachers were mainly satisfied to their eating during the work day. The home economics teachers' own eating came out only for those teachers who ate daily at school restaurant or teachers who ate at home economic lessons with students. The results showed that the home economics teachers' own eating is not the most essential way to execute food education as they execute food education a lot for example by talking and showing enthusiasm. By means of this study it is possible to support teachers' eating during work day and improve the use of school restaurant by developing the factors which affect eating.