LOMA-local food – integrating health promotion, learning and sustainable development.

The initial LOMA project consisted of a combined development- and research project, that was conducted from 2011-2014. See papers and Ph.d dissertation here.

Financial support from Nordea-foundation, facilitatet upscaling to five more schools during 2015-2017 was facilitated in the second LOMA project. This project was conducted in collaboration between University College Lillebelt and 6 schools ind the municipalities of Svendborg, Herning, Aalborg and Ishoj.

It was  expected, that the LOMA project would contribute to students’ development of components of food and healt-related action competence. Among these are knowledge, insight, skills, motivation, ownership, real-life experience and critical thinking. Based on preliminary results from research on LOMA project, there are  indications, that students will develop healthier eating habits and experience comensality, sense of coherence and quality of life, when they participated in LOMA educational activities (Ruge, Puck & Hansen 2017). Additional results from  LOMA  indicated, that social innovation was an outcome (Ruge and Mikkelsen, 2013). This was caused by the establishment of educational links between school, local producers and food communities.

The conceptual framework in LOMA approach is based on contemporary theories of learning ( Illeris 2003;Hattie 2009) and theories from health promoting schools (Simovska and Jensen 2005). In addition, theories from foodscape studies and childhood studies (Dolphijn 2004; Brembeck 2009) and alternative Geographies (Wiskerke 2009) are included. Social learning constitutes the core of the intervention, that encompass participation from both teachers, pedagogs and students (8-15 years). Also teacher-students have participated in educational activities as part of their education and bachelor assignment.

Evaluation of the program theory of LOMA project (2015-2017) was conducted by Danish Evaluation Institute, EVA. Consultants followed pupils, teachers and headmasters during two years. In the report the main conclusion was:

“The LOMA project was experienced as a well-functioning project that led to experienced passion and involvement among participants. The implementation of LOMA as a programtheory leads to three different objectives being met: The first objective was to provide students with motivation for the longer school day, thus improving their learning opportunities. The other objective was that pupils obtained the knowledge and skills to make healthy choices, that in the long term support healthy consumer behavior with regard to healthy choices both nutritionally and environmentally. The third objective was to improve relations between teachers and pupils and between the pupils, and to increase the student’s well-being in the long term. As the chapter has shown, both teachers, students and management assesses that there is a positive benefit from LOMA teaching” (EVA 2017, p.5-6, 38)

See video from LOMA top-meeting here

See video from final conference here

In 2019 the Association of LOMA-local food in kindergarten and schools was established. The aim is to promote LOMA-local food approach, which is an whole-school and integrated approach. LOMA participated in the EPES Erasmus Project (2018-2020) and the final report and scientific paper has been published (Ruge et al., 2020; Jones et al., 2021).

References

Brembeck, H. (2009). Children’s ‘Becoming’ in Frontiering Foodscapes. In James, A., Kjørholt, A. T., & Tingstad, V. . Children, food and identity in everyday life. Basingstoke, UK:Palgrave Macmillian.

Checkland, P. (2000). Systems thinking, systems practice. J Operational Research Society, 51 (5), 647. Hattie, J. (2009), “Visible learning – a synthesis of over 800 meta-analysis”, Routledge.

EVA, Danish Evaluation Institute (2017). Evaluation of LOMA project. Available online.

Illeris, K. (2003). Learning, Identity and Self-orientation in Youth. Young, 11(4), 357-376. Jensen, B. B., and Simovska, V. (2005), “Involving students in learning and health promotion processes-clarifying why? what? and how?”, Promotion & Education, 12(3-4), 150. Sage Publications.

Langford, R., Bonell, C. P., Jones, H. E., Pouliou, T., Murphy, S. M., Waters, E., Campbell, R. (2014), “The WHO health promoting school framework for improving the health and well-being of students and their academic achievement”, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 4, Wiley Online Library.

Pawson R., Tilley N., (1998) Caring communities, paradigm polemics, design debates. Evaluation, 4 (1), 73-90.

Rayner, G. and Lang, T (2013). Ecological Public Health: Reshaping the conditions for good health. Routledge.

Ruge, D., and Mikkelsen, B. E. (2013), “Local public food strategies as a social innovation: Early insights from the LOMA-Nymarkskolen case study”, Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section B–Soil & Plant Science, 63(sup1), 56-65. Taylor & Francis. SHE Network (2013),

Ruge, D. (2015) Integrating health promotion, learning and sustainable development – the LOMA case study. Phd Dissertation. Aalborg University.

Ruge, D. (2018) Final report – LOMA project. University College Lillebaelt, Centre for applied research in school and education. Available online in Danish Link

“Terms of reference. Ratified at the SHE assembly meeting in Odense 2013”

Ruge, D. (2019) EPESS Project Report.

https://scholar.google.dk/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=mChtdPAAAAAJ&cstart=20&pagesize=80&citation_for_view=mChtdPAAAAAJ:4DMP91E08xMC

Jones, M., Ruge, D., & Jones, V. (2022). How educational staff in European schools reform school food systems through ‘everyday practices’. Environmental Education Research, 28(4), 545-559.