Background: Poor diet quality in childhood and adolescence is a global public health concern.
Structured settings such as schools can act as settings for improving diet quality, and the reduction
of inequalities. Whole-school approaches are recommended, but complexity of the school system
can cause difficulties in implementing whole-school approaches. This study aimed to apply a systems
lens to the secondary school food system, to understand what factors are influencing food choice.

Methods: Participatory methods were used with a diverse range of school stakeholders, to coproduce a systems map of factors influencing food choice in the UK secondary school food system.
An online survey gathered initial factors, and a group model building workshop helped to establish
relationships between these factors. Two workshops with school pupils captured views from pupils
and gathered their feedback on the map, which then underwent final refinement by the research
team.

Results: The systems map contains 24 factors with 43 relationships between them, each factor
falling under one of six themes: catering and procurement, school leadership and governance, the
priority of food within schools, social experience, behaviours and attitudes, the food space and
experience in school and financial. The map demonstrates how each of the factors interact with each
other (including direction of influence).

Conclusion: The systems map provides a visual representation of the complex UK secondary school
food system, and can be used by a variety of stakeholders in the design and evaluation of wholeschool, multi-component interventions and programmes targeting food choice in secondary schools.

LB9 - Factors influencing food choice in the UK secondary school food setting: mapping the system.

Unique to the new Congress (previously the Summer Conference) is that you will have greater opportunity to engage with more nutrition science than ever before. In 2024 the core programme will be delivered by the Irish Section of The Nutrition Society, supported by the Science Committee. The theme of these symposia will be ‘new data – focused approaches and challenges’. Outside of the core programme you will have the chance to hear the latest research from the Society’s partner organisations, universities, the private sector and more, on a diverse range of research.