In this paper, we present findings from a community-based research project on school food environments in 50 elementary and high schools in a mid-sized city in Ontario, Canada. Our findings highlight that schools' privilege five intersecting domains in the school food environment: 1) health and nutrition; 2) food access; 3) education and food literacy; 4) environment and sustainability; and 5) the socio-cultural aspects of food. These results illustrate that the dominant discourses about school food mainly revolve around health, nutrition and food access, yet many of the K-12 principals also identified food literacy and learning about sustainable food systems and the environment, in addition to the relational or socio-cultural aspects of foods as important elements of their school food environments. This integrative approach to food extends our understanding of food beyond charity, and opens up conversations about food as a human right. Ouranalysis shows the need to go beyond a health or nutrition school food program and consider integrative food pedagogies which will promote social and environmental food justice in the school food environment.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Parker, B., Koeppel, M., (2025), "Beyond Health & Nutrition: Re-framing school food programs through integrated food pedagogies", HSSCommons: (DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v7i2.371)

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1. Integrated Food Pedagogies
2. National School Food Program
3. Nutritionism
4. school food environment

Original publication: Parker, Barbara; Koeppel, Mario. "Beyond Health & Nutrition: Re-framing school food programs through integrated food pedagogies." Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation, vol. 7, no. 2, 2020, pp. 48-71. DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v7i2.371. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation. Copyright © the author(s). Work published in CFS/RCÉA prior to and including Vol. 8, No. 3 (2021) is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY license. Work published in Vol. 8, No. 4 (2021) and after is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA license. For details, see creativecommons.org/licenses/.