The School of Advanced Studies on Food and Nutrition organized a workshop on strategies to promote healthy and sustainable eating behaviors at university canteens.
The workshop - Multi-strategic interventions to promote the implementation of a healthy and sustainable university canteen policy – was held in Parma on September 29th, 2022.
This one-day event engaged experts from many different fields, from academia to canteen managers, and from several countries. Among the speakers, Laura Bouwman from Wageningen University and Wendelin Slusser, Catherine Carpenter, and Catie Imbery from the University of California shared their latest findings. In addition, the workshop included researchers from YALE Hospitality and Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. Finally, from the University of Parma, Beatrice Biasini and Giovanni Sogari hold a presentation named “The Effect of Nudging on University Students’ Healthy and Sustainable Food Choices”.
The conference ended with a round-the-table among all lecturers. During this stage, experts shared their ideas and opinions on future steps and stressed the need to include all stakeholders in the process. In addition, effective communication strategies and engagement activities were addressed underling the importance of a bottom-up approach to involve students in sustainability aspects. In this scenario, science has the key role to create new relationships and cooperate to find the best strategies to lead to this change.
The event was an exceptional opportunity to gather and exchange ideas, and to start working together to support strategic interventions toward healthier and more sustainable university canteens.
