SchoolGrid has partnered with researchers at the University of Leeds for an exciting new study to explore children’s food choice in schools.

This new study is part of an ongoing collaboration with Dr Hannah Ensaff from the School of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Leeds. SchoolGrid and Dr Ensaff have been working together to see how we can better understand how children (and parents) choose a school lunch. This work aims to reveal valuable insights that will help us to consider the best food environment for children to make food decisions that promote a healthy and varied diet.

For this new study, Inès François, a PhD researcher supervised by Dr Ensaff and Dr Matt Homer, an expert in quantitative methods, will be spending the next two years examining food choice data from primary schools to see what findings these may hold. This will form part of Inès’ PhD in the Centre for Data Analytics and Society, funded by the Economics and Social Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation.

This is an exciting project that will give us a greater understanding of how children select their school lunch and will also contribute to future interventions to improve children’s food choice in schools.