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Schools play an important role in improving children's dietary behaviour and health through mandatory national policies and additional voluntary programmes. High quality food education and school food also have the potential to reduce inequalities in diet and health but rely on universal implementation and high adherence for optimal success.

In high income countries policies related to school food and food education vary substantially. For example, in Sweden free meals are provided to all school children whilst in Norway the tradition is for children to bring lunch into school from home; although Norway is currently in transition moving from food brought from home to providing school meals. In the UK mandatory school food standards exist for virtually all schools but adherence is low in some schools despite being a national policy.

School food curricula also vary across schools and across countries. In the UK national policies include food education as part of the design and technology curriculum but it remains a relatively small part of the total curriculum. Additional enriching programmes are available in many high income countries such as more intensive cooking programmes and sensory education programmes, but are, again, rarely implemented universally. One reason for low uptake of some enriching programmes related to food may be the lack of clarity around the varied benefits of these programmes. It is also necessary to align food education with goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) and other factors related to planet health. Research is needed to determine the optimal approaches in terms of school based policies and programmes in individual high income countries.

This symposium will cover topics related to school food policies and food education and report results from up to date systematic reviews and quantitative and qualitative data from randomised controlled trials in different age groups of children. The first presentation will provide comprehensive information from two systematic reviews; one on the impact of school food programmes in Nordic countries and one on school based cooking programmes on food literacy and cooking confidence. The second presentation will present results from an RCT to evaluate a sensory education programme in children aged 4 to 7 years on willingness to taste vegetables.  The third presentation will provide qualitative results from a trial to evaluate factors influencing degree of adherence to some school food policies. A Swedish expert on school food will act as discussant to promote in depth discussion.

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