Browsing by Author "Hakala, Silja"

School meals and snacks at school can play a significant role of young person’s food behavior, participation and developing food sense. According to previous studies, the diet of Finnish schoolchildren has become irregular and the use of vegetables, berries and fruits is underrepresented in comparison to the recommendations. The purpose of this research is to highlight the ideas that pupils bring about to develop school meals and snacks. The study ex-amines pupils' nutritional habits and participation in school. The research was carried out in co-operation with the Youth Academy's Own Selection -project (2015–2017). The nature of this study is qualitative research, but the material also reveals elements of quantitative research. The research material consists of two sources of research. The first material was an electronic survey and second material was collected from idea laboratories. The methods of the analyses are cross tabulation and type casting. There were ten schools in the research material from different parts of Finland. A total of 1555 pupils had responded to the online survey. The idea laboratory was a participatory model for the students of the project. A total of 305 pupils from six different schools participated in the idea laboratory. The reliability of the research is strengthened through mixed strategies. The FAMM model (The Five Aspects Meal Model), was used to help analyze the second material. The FAMM model is commonly used for comprehensive assessment of restaurant experience and is suitable for analyzing a variety of food services. (Gustafsson, Öström, Johansson & Mossberg, 2006) Based on the results of the research, the pupils had previously poorly participated in school meal’s arrangements in particular. The results also reflected how most of the students wanted to develop school meals and school snacks, taking into account the perspective of healthy nutrition. The pupils especially wanted to add fruits and vegetable dishes to school. According to interviewees, the results were in line with the new Recommendations for school meals. (Eating and learning together, National Nutrition Council).