Reports – Sustainability

Sustainability > Reports > Dietetic Educator

Austrian Dietary Guidelines (2024)

The 2024 Austrian Dietary guidelines were developed by the Competence Center for Climate and Health of Austria GmbH (GÖG) together with the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES) and the Austrian Society for Nutrition (ÖGE). Both health and climate aspects were taken into account.

Visit the link to also download the brochure “Healthy eating, good for the climate” (in German) or it can be accessed or ordered via the brochure service of the Ministry of Social Affairs. The brochure contains healthy and climate-friendly recipes based on the plate model. It was developed by three universities of applied sciences for dietology on behalf of the Ministry of Health.

TABLE (website)

TABLE’s mission: ingredients for better dialogue. TABLE is a food systems platform that sets out the evidence, assumptions and values that people bring to debates about resilient and sustainable food futures. They explore the data, the biases and the beliefs behind those debates in order to support better dialogue, decision making and action.

TABLE is for everyone with an interest in food. Acting as an interface between the worlds of research and practice, our work reflects and interrogates real and relevant food system debates. We are in constant dialogue with people working within the food system, including civil society, policy makers, advocates and practitioners.

TABLE puts together many resources such as explainers, blog posts, podcasts, letterbox series, other publications in their resource library, and a list of events and job opportunities. They have a page in Spanish as well. TABLE es MESA en América Latina.

A useful resource for busy people is their summary series which break down some of their explainers into a brief format. Short summaries are now available for the following explainers:

What is regenerative agriculture?
What is ecomodernism?
What is feed food competition?
What is the land sparing-land sharing continuum?
What is agroecology?
What is food sovereignty?
Soy: food, feed and land use change
Rewilding and its implications for agriculture
Agricultural methane
What is malnutrition?
What is the nutrition transition?
What is ultra-processed food? And why do people disagree about its utility as a concept?

TABLE was created in collaboration with the University of Oxford, building on the work of the Food Climate Research Network; the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), via the SLU Future Food platform; and Wageningen University & Research, and then expanded to include la Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and Cornell CALS (USA).

Determining Health: Food systems issue brief (2024)

This issue brief explores the connections between food systems and human health and well-being in the Canadian context, as part of the Determining Health series of the National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health. It is also available in French. This issue brief is intended for public health practitioners, decision-makers, researchers, and students looking to learn about the public health relevance of (industrial) food systems and the urgent need for their transformation.

The resource is divided into four sections:

Section 1 introduces food systems and their major components, defining food systems as the “webs of activities, people, institutions and processes that bring food from the fields, forests and waters to our plates, and beyond”.
Section 2 explains why food systems matter for public health policy and practice. It describes their importance for meeting populations’ nutritional needs and highlights key issues with Canada’s industrial food systems, the dominant type of food system in the country.
Section 3 draws on peer-reviewed and grey literature from 42 sources to explain five pathways linking industrial food systems to health inequities.
Section 4 concludes the document and underscores that all public health practitioners and organizations have a role in helping build healthier, more sustainable and just food systems.

Use this resource to

Build understanding of food systems and their major components
Facilitate discussion on how industrial food systems contribute to health inequities in the Canadian context
Support food system-related public health interventions

Sustainability-informed dietetics education: key messages for educators and national dietetics associations (2024)

Browne S, Corish C, Nordin S, Carlsson L. Sustainability-informed dietetics education: key messages for educators and national dietetics associations. J Hum Nutr Diet. 2024; 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1111/jhn.13322

Background

Dietetics curricula currently fail to meet the educational needs of the future dietetic workforce to contribute expertise in sustainable, healthy food systems in the settings in which dietitians work. A ‘Global Networking Event on Sustainable Food Systems in Nutrition and Dietetics Education’ was held in June 2023 with the goals of building relationships among international stakeholders and informing the development of shared curricula.

Methods

Plenary lectures, panels and roundtable discussions were held over 2 days, designed to provide the background required to generate informed actions. Topics included recent research from practice and education, competency standards and relevant policy documents, examples from the field, ‘big questions’ about scope and student perspectives. Key messages were summarised thematically to inform educators and national dietetics associations.

Results

Fifty-five delegates attended from 11 nations representing education, research, dietetic associations, industry and diverse practice backgrounds. Key priorities identified for educators included co-development of curricular frameworks and pedagogical theory, practical training supports and solutions to limited time and expertise. Key recommendations for national dietetics associations included strategic promotion of sustainable food systems in dietetic roles and practical supports.

Conclusions

Outcomes are anticipated to stimulate ongoing discussion, collaboration and actions on sustainable food systems education within the dietetics profession leading to shared curricular models and supports.

Highlights

Sustainable food system (SFS) competency requirements and curricular integration are inconsistent globally and lack robust frameworks to support dietetics education.
There is a need to define the scope of practice for SFS within dietitians’ roles.
Current opportunities in education include scaffolding existing topics and activities with signature pedagogies for sustainability, harnessing transferrable knowledge and skills to adapt to future SFS roles, and establishing interdisciplinary food systems teaching and learning activities.
National dietetics associations can act to support SFS in the professional role of dietitians.

How Practitioners Can Influence Planetary Health (2024)

Published by Orgain, written by Mary Purdy, MS, RDN. This 12-page article is inclusive of a useful list of resources and references with 9 suggestions for putting recommendations into practice.

In addition to the topics they raise, two other issues are key for Sustainable Food Systems:

🥤 🛒 PLASTICS are a huge part of the problem in all parts of the food system from production to processing to consumption. We can avoid plastic and help our clients and networks to do the same.

🌳 🦗 There are thousands of INDIGENOUS SPECIES around the world – diverse flora, fungi, and fauna – which can help to heal our planet & people.

Nutrition and Dietetics Professionals Sustainable Food Systems Knowledge Seeking Behaviour (2024)

Citation: Powell, R., Carlsson, L., & Callaghan, E. (2024). Nutrition and Dietetics Professionals Sustainable Food Systems Knowledge Seeking Behaviour. Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/19320248.2024.2321231 (paywall)

Abstract

Sustainable food system (SFS) competence is a new and recognized knowledge area for nutrition and dietetics professionals (NDP). This research seeks to describe the SFS knowledge-seeking behavior of NDP.

Secondary data analysis of 231 anonymous self-assessments collected between September 2020 to December 2021 indicate a high proportion (41%) of self-assessed “beginners” in this topic at a mixture of career stages.

There was a preference for learning about topics that already have significant public attention globally. More advanced practitioners sought more applied information.

These results are informative for updating education and professional development tools for NDP.

Teaching nutrition and sustainable food systems: justification and an applied approach (2023 Sep)

**Four pillar method of analysis. Prompts to consider when evaluating characteristics of a food product using the sustainable, resilient, healthy food and water system framework.**

Campbell, C., & Feldpausch, J. (2023). Teaching nutrition and sustainable food systems: justification and an applied approach. Frontiers in Nutrition. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2023.1167180.

Systems thinking is an essential skill for solving real-world problems, supporting lasting, impactful change, and creating desired futures. Transdisciplinary teaching and learning should be integrated into higher education to ensure students have the knowledge and skills to prosper in an ever-changing world. Education that addresses the interconnectedness of food systems is fundamental in cultivating future generations equipped to mitigate complex problems, such as hunger, nutrition-related chronic disease, and the climate crisis.

Connecting the food, agriculture, and nutrition sectors is vitally important for improving human and planetary health and well-being. While we continue to acknowledge that it is critically important to teach systems thinking in the context of sustainable food systems limited resources are available to facilitate this type of learning. Historically, a “triple-bottom-line” approach focusing on economic, environmental, and social perspectives has been used to define sustainability. In contrast, including nutrition and health may provide a more robust view and even greater consideration for the system in its entirety.

The sustainable, resilient, healthy food and water system framework, addressing all four pillars, can be used in higher education to help evaluate the sustainability of food and compare methods of production, place, and dietary patterns. This paper justifies the need for addressing sustainability issues in the context of nutrition and provides an educational approach to support student understanding and application of a systems thinking approach.

In addition to the resources cited in the descriptions of the four pillars; the Food Systems Dashboard, Our World in Data, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest may be beneficial references to consider for multiple pillars.

Note: Even though the article is written from the perspective of and with examples from the USA, the teaching approach could easily use other examples from any region of the world.

Innovative Food Systems Teaching and Learning (IFSTAL)

IFSTAL (Innovative Food Systems Teaching and Learning) is a cross-university, interdisciplinary food systems training programme for postgraduate students to address global food challenges.

There is an urgent need to train a cohort of professionals who can address and resolve the increasing number of fundamental failings in the global food system. The solutions to these systemic failings go far beyond the production of food and are embedded within broad political, economic, business, social, cultural, and environmental contexts. The challenge of developing efficient, socially acceptable, and sustainable food systems that meet the demands of a growing global population can only be tackled through an interdisciplinary systems approach that integrates social, economic, and environmental dimensions.

IFSTAL is designed to improve post-graduate level knowledge and understanding of food systems from a much broader interdisciplinary perspective, which can be applied to students’ studies. Ultimately, these graduates should be equipped to apply critical interdisciplinary systems thinking in the workplace to understand how problems are connected, their root causes, and where critical leverage points might be.

Led by the Food Systems Research Programme at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, IFSTAL is a pioneering consortium of institutions: Oxford University, Warwick University, Royal Veterinary College, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)

A pathway to personal, population and planetary health for dietitians and nutrition professionals (2023 Nov)

MacKenzie-Shalders, K. L., Barbour, L., Charlton, K., Cox, G. R., Lawrence, M., Murray, S., Newberry, K., Senior, N. M., Stanton, R., & Tagtow, A. M. (2023). A pathway to personal, population and planetary health for dietitians and nutrition professionals. Public Health Nutrition, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1002/puh2.137