COVID-19 School Re-opening Plans: Rolling Back School Food Programming in Canada?
At the beginning of 2020 national school food programs reached more children than any time in history making school food programs the most extensive form of social safety nets in the world. Looking to Canada, school food programs across the country serve more than 1 million students and provide mult...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2022-04-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Communication |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2022.767970/full |
| _version_ | 1811329831861747712 |
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| author | Mary Coulas Amberley T. Ruetz Mariam R. Ismail Lindsay H. Goodridge Sterling Stutz Rachel Engler-Stringer |
| author_facet | Mary Coulas Amberley T. Ruetz Mariam R. Ismail Lindsay H. Goodridge Sterling Stutz Rachel Engler-Stringer |
| author_sort | Mary Coulas |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | At the beginning of 2020 national school food programs reached more children than any time in history making school food programs the most extensive form of social safety nets in the world. Looking to Canada, school food programs across the country serve more than 1 million students and provide multifaceted benefits including access to healthy fresh food choices, improving learning capacities, promoting nutritional awareness, assisting food-insecure households, and promoting local food procurement. However, since the beginning of the SARS-Cov 2 (COVID-19) pandemic these programs have faced operational challenges resulting in many rolling back their operations while food insecurity rates in Canada have increased dramatically. Framed as a Canadian case study analysis, this paper considers the discursive effects of provincial and territorial school reopening plans and the material consequences felt by SFPs. Specifically, this paper considers the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance of provincial and territorial school food programs within the broader conceptualization of ecological public health to consider if these programs were enabled or constrained by school reopening plans. The authors conducted a policy analysis of 57 primary and 164 supportive school reopening documents developed between April 2020 and September 2021. It was found that provincial and territorial school reopening plans primarily focused on measures to limit infectious disease transmission while food discussed in broad terms demonstrated policy makers' limited awareness of the important role of school food programs and support required to maintain them. In turn, two key observations were made: 1) government school reopening plans have overlooked the benefits of school food programs in Canada, and 2) school reopening plan designers missed opportunities to improve school food programs. This paper argues a thorough understanding of the impacts to school food programs by provincial and territorial COVID-19 public health guidelines is needed for politicians, policymakers, and school food practitioners to support the short- and long-term capacity of these programs and to ensure food insecurity and nutritional health issues in Canada continue to be on thepolitical agenda. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T15:50:53Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-67220ee27fca46fb95937fe67cb87c30 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2297-900X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T15:50:53Z |
| publishDate | 2022-04-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Communication |
| spelling | doaj.art-67220ee27fca46fb95937fe67cb87c302022-12-22T02:40:50ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Communication2297-900X2022-04-01710.3389/fcomm.2022.767970767970COVID-19 School Re-opening Plans: Rolling Back School Food Programming in Canada?Mary Coulas0Amberley T. Ruetz1Mariam R. Ismail2Lindsay H. Goodridge3Sterling Stutz4Rachel Engler-Stringer5Department of Political Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, CanadaDepartment of Community Health and Epidemiology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, CanadaDepartment of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Western University, London, ON, CanadaDalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, CanadaDalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, CanadaDepartment of Community Health and Epidemiology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, CanadaAt the beginning of 2020 national school food programs reached more children than any time in history making school food programs the most extensive form of social safety nets in the world. Looking to Canada, school food programs across the country serve more than 1 million students and provide multifaceted benefits including access to healthy fresh food choices, improving learning capacities, promoting nutritional awareness, assisting food-insecure households, and promoting local food procurement. However, since the beginning of the SARS-Cov 2 (COVID-19) pandemic these programs have faced operational challenges resulting in many rolling back their operations while food insecurity rates in Canada have increased dramatically. Framed as a Canadian case study analysis, this paper considers the discursive effects of provincial and territorial school reopening plans and the material consequences felt by SFPs. Specifically, this paper considers the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance of provincial and territorial school food programs within the broader conceptualization of ecological public health to consider if these programs were enabled or constrained by school reopening plans. The authors conducted a policy analysis of 57 primary and 164 supportive school reopening documents developed between April 2020 and September 2021. It was found that provincial and territorial school reopening plans primarily focused on measures to limit infectious disease transmission while food discussed in broad terms demonstrated policy makers' limited awareness of the important role of school food programs and support required to maintain them. In turn, two key observations were made: 1) government school reopening plans have overlooked the benefits of school food programs in Canada, and 2) school reopening plan designers missed opportunities to improve school food programs. This paper argues a thorough understanding of the impacts to school food programs by provincial and territorial COVID-19 public health guidelines is needed for politicians, policymakers, and school food practitioners to support the short- and long-term capacity of these programs and to ensure food insecurity and nutritional health issues in Canada continue to be on thepolitical agenda.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2022.767970/fullschoolscoronavirusstudent healthfood securityschool food programmandates |
| spellingShingle | Mary Coulas Amberley T. Ruetz Mariam R. Ismail Lindsay H. Goodridge Sterling Stutz Rachel Engler-Stringer COVID-19 School Re-opening Plans: Rolling Back School Food Programming in Canada? Frontiers in Communication schools coronavirus student health food security school food program mandates |
| title | COVID-19 School Re-opening Plans: Rolling Back School Food Programming in Canada? |
| title_full | COVID-19 School Re-opening Plans: Rolling Back School Food Programming in Canada? |
| title_fullStr | COVID-19 School Re-opening Plans: Rolling Back School Food Programming in Canada? |
| title_full_unstemmed | COVID-19 School Re-opening Plans: Rolling Back School Food Programming in Canada? |
| title_short | COVID-19 School Re-opening Plans: Rolling Back School Food Programming in Canada? |
| title_sort | covid 19 school re opening plans rolling back school food programming in canada |
| topic | schools coronavirus student health food security school food program mandates |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2022.767970/full |
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