THIS ARTICLE/PRESS RELEASE IS PAID FOR AND PRESENTED BY THE University of Agder - read more

The food and health subject consists of more than cooking, but this is not reflected in the teaching.

Little room for health in the food and health subject

80 percent of the teaching in the food and health subject involves cooking, Cecilie Beinert's survey of the teaching practice in the subject shows.

Magnus Nødland Skogedal COMMUNICATIONS ADVISOR
Presented by: University of Agder
Published

“It may not be surprising that a lot of time is spent in the kitchen in the food and health subject. But many of the learning objectives from the National Curriculum ‘Kunnskapsløftet 2006’ are about completely different things, not only cooking. This curriculum was in use until 2020. The learning objectives include reflecting on the impact our diets have on health, climate and environment, the use of food labelling, and becoming a critical consumer,” says Beinert.

She has written a doctoral thesis on the topic entitled '“An unexploited potential”. LifeLab Food and Health: Assessment and Development of Teaching and Learning Practices in the Norwegian School Subject Food and Health'. In her thesis she looked at how the food and health subject is being taught, the formal competence of those who teach, and made learning material for pupils that corresponds better with the more theoretical learning objectives in the subject. These are competencies such as understanding, deliberating, assessing or discussing.

Lack qualifications

“‘The food and health subject will contribute to improving public health’, the new curriculum that was introduced in 2020 states. Which means that cooking skills are needed, but also a whole lot of other skills. The teachers I spoke to know that the subject is about more than learning how to follow a recipe and cooking, but it is difficult for them to manage that. Like most teachers, they are often short of time, and they often end up talking about the health side of the subject while the pupils are cooking,” Beinert says.

In subjects such as mathematics, the requirement is that teachers must have at least 60 credits in the subject in order to teach it. In the food and health subject, the requirement is 30 credits at the lower secondary level, and none at all at the primary level.

“Results from the thesis indicate that there is a mismatch between curriculum goals and teaching practices in food and health,” says Cecilie Beinert.

“My survey shows that less than half of the teachers who currently teach food and health have credits in the subject. It is often a coincidence who is asked to teach the subject, and teaching appointments often turn out to be the result of scheduling issues rather than who actually has the right qualifications,” says Beinert.

Alternative teaching methods needed

Teachers she interviewed are clear that they want to explore the subject more but are impeded by time constraints. Another thing that recurred was that teaching unrelated to cooking was done in a very traditional way, with pupils as passive listeners.

Beinert wants to develop alternative teaching approaches that engage the pupils and respond to the learning objectives of the subject.

“Cooking is fun, partly because the pupils get to do something and not sit still. They are active, and we want to bring this to the more theoretical learning objectives. We developed six different learning activities. They deal with sustainability, five-a-day, the bread scale and ranking of foods by nutritional content,” says Beinert.

Cooking and theory combined

The goal was to combine the social and practical aspects of the food and health subject with theory. The feedback from the pupils was good, and Beinert and her colleagues will continue to work on these learning activities.

The new curriculum in the food and health subject states that pupils must develop knowledge about health-promoting diets by cooking and preparing meals. Beinert fears that this may reinforce the current practice where theory primarily is discussed over the cooking pots. She suggests greater emphasis on meal planning. That will give pupils the opportunity to consider dietary advice, food labelling and make other critical assessments.

“Simply being good in the kitchen is not enough to be a teacher in food and health. You must also be a skilled communicator and have qualifications in the topics the curriculum covers. This is also one of the reasons why we offer master's education for teachers in food and health at UiA,” says Cecilie Beinert.

Reference:

Cecilie Beinert: An unexploited potential». LifeLab Food and Health: Assessment and Development of Teaching and Learning Practices in the Norwegian School Subject Food and Health. Doctoral dissertation, University of Agder, 2021. (About the dissertation)

See more content from the University of Agder:

school and education partner food and nutrition society and culture university of agder teaching methods pedagogy
Powered by Labrador CMS