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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health and Nutrition
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1425468
This article is part of the Research Topic How School Health and Nutrition Interventions are Reshaping the Global Public Health Narrative View all 8 articles

A survey of nutritional education within the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme across England

Provisionally accepted
Emily K. Round Emily K. Round 1*Paul B. Stretesky Paul B. Stretesky 2Margaret (Greta) A. Defeyter Margaret (Greta) A. Defeyter 1*
  • 1 Healthy Living Lab, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
  • 2 School of Social and Political Science, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, England, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Nutritional education is a mandatory component of the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme in England, yet there is a paucity of literature exploring how this component is delivered. The aim of this study was therefore to explore the delivery, content, dose and perceived impacts of nutritional education, at the HAF club level, across England. Methods: A self-completion, cross-sectional online survey design was adopted. Non-probability purposive sampling was used to collect data from HAF club leads (n=147) from across England. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and frequencies. Findings: Face-to-face nutritional education was the most common mode of delivery, with sessions mostly comprising of discussing food and nutrition. However, whilst the majority of clubs delivered the required number of nutritional education sessions per week, according to the Department for Education’s guidelines, the time spent delivering individual nutritional education activities may not be sufficient to drive change in related skills and behaviours. Moreover, many clubs did not adopt a whole-family approach, and some did not deliver any nutritional education activities at all, which club leads attributed to a lack of material resources and ambiguity in the national HAF guidance. Conclusion: Nutritional education is delivered in a variety of ways across HAF clubs, based upon available local assets, resources and venues. Policy and practice recommendations include increased HAF funding to support clubs that lack material resources, national training in nutritional education, and evidence-informed guidance and practice.

    Keywords: Nutritional education, holiday provision, holiday clubs, Food education, food literacy, Food insecurity, School policy

    Received: 29 Apr 2024; Accepted: 23 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Round, Stretesky and Defeyter. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Emily K. Round, Healthy Living Lab, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
    Margaret (Greta) A. Defeyter, Healthy Living Lab, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.