The shaping of healthy & organic school meal programs in three Danish municipalities can be understood as a proces of "translation" in actor networks

Abstract

Promotion of healthy eating in some Danish public school settings has become a preferred option to counteract the growing rates of obesity among young people. The purpose of study was to explore how these Danish school meal programs are shaped in their local communities. The study analyses the actor-groups in three municipalities using an actor network theoretical framework. The "translation" proces of the actor network was utilized to unfold the infrastructure of the school food service space in the municipalities. The first stage is the statement of core problem in the research so that define actors in the shaping process of school meal programs and influences then together to achieve the aim. Then distributes and locks each actor into its proper group: municipality, school or food provision. Afterwards interaction and relationship among all actors in three groups is illustrated. The last stage demonstrates possible movement among the actors, which is mobilization of the process. The study shows that the shaping of school food programs is complex process due to the local conditions and local power relations etc, but actor networks play a crucial role to influence upon building of "localness" and "bottom up" of school meal programs in the country