This document provides an overview of course content for FDN016 Weeks 4-5. It discusses defining student food poverty and signing into a Google register. It introduces systems thinking concepts like root definitions, hard and soft systems, and developing a working definition of student food poverty from a systems perspective. Students are asked to find definitions of student food poverty from different sources and compare them. They then create their own definition or express it using systems terminology involving parts, boundaries, processes and people. The document emphasizes applying soft systems methodology to conceptualize the student food system and its purpose, outcomes, and dysfunctions related to food poverty.

1. FDN016 Week 4 & 5
TC3: Defining student food
poverty
Tap into SEATs
Sign into google register
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2. Starter: Is a google search neutral?
• A quick test, open google and type
• “why is black his
• What autocomplete do you get?
• Now type “why are black wome
• Do you get an autocomplete?
• Type in ‘black girls’. And then ‘Asian girls’. Do you get dating sites?
• Google uses cookies on your browser to help provide you with search results that
are more meaningful and relevant to you, by filtering in results that are based on
your previous searches
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWw7Wd2gUJk
• NELSON does not use cookies to maintain a neutral search
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3. So, can you make sense of the module yet?
3Is this the best possible model?
Probably not. Can you improve it?

4. 4
An unknown problem
situation has arrived……..
http://conceptartworld.com/news/arrival-concept-art-peter-konig/ [Accessed 24 Oct 2019]

5. 5
UNKNOWN PROBLEM SITUATION
“student food poverty”
What are its implications?
How do we control and limit this “messy problem”? (Ackoff, 1981)
start with a WORKING DEFINITION
Technically known as a “root definition” (Checkland, 2000)
Can I ignore it?Do I have to
deal with this?
{Somebody
Else’s Problem
field}
{cognitive
blind spot}
“Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes.”

6. 6

7. Visual blind spot
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Close your right eye. With your left eye, look at the red circle.
Slowly move your head closer to the image. At a certain
distance, the blue line will not look broken!! This is because
your brain is "filling in" the missing information.

8. The assignment is based around the
investigation
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9. Unstructured problem situation
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10. Hierarchy of resources
1. Peer reviewed Academic Journal
2. European or Government Scientific Report
3. Academic Published textbook/PhD
4. Published popular book
5. Self-published text/Technical Report
6. Organisation website
7. Personal website
8. Youtube/vimeo/TED/twitch
9. Newspaper
10. Facebook, tiktok, Instagram
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11. 11

12. 12

13. Boolean Operands and Synonyms
• word word word = all instances of all the words
• “word word word” = the exact phrase
• word AND word
• word NOT word
• Student: undergrads, universities, university, college, pupil, school,
education
• Food: nutrition, diet, lunch(es), obesity, malnutrition
• Poverty: insecurity, deficiency, accessibility, availability
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14. Part 2 Week 5
• Tap into SEATs
• Sign into google register
• Please tell me (on the google register) who you think your Personal
Tutor is, and how they have been in touch with you, if they have done
so. (email, face to face, workshop, not at all}
Quick starter: practice making field notes (class notes) for making a
meal
Everyone should have brought THREE definitions of student food
poverty with them
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15. Doing more with definitions
• Think of the world (or parts of it) as a system, some of which is
dysfunctional
• We need to identify what parts (and relationships) are not working,
and why
• And then we can intervene.
• This is SOFT SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY or SSM (Checkland, 2000)
• SSM is based upon a single concept: that we model systems of
purposeful human activity
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16. The classroom as a purposeful system
• Purpose:
• Parts:
• Boundaries:
• Processes:
• People:
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17. Hard systems- cogs and wheels
17
Y
Y
Y
Technically complicated, but component parts are simple

18. Ecosystems: plants, animals, links
18
Purpose:
Parts:
Processes:
People:
Boundaries:
Y
Y
?
Complex, individual components are relatively well understood, but relationships unpredictable

19. Soft Systems: social relations
Rodríguez-Ulloa, R.A., Montbrun, A.
& Martínez-Vicente, (2011) Soft
System Dynamics Methodology in
Action: A study of the Problem of
Citizen Insecurity in an Argentinean
Province
S. Syst Pract Action Res (2011) 24:
275.
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Purpose: Y
Parts: Y
Processes: Y
People: Y
Boundaries: Y
Super complex, super unpredictable, individual components are not reducible

20. CLASS ACTIVITY
• Find three different definitions of food poverty from different sources
• Note them all down
• Compare them: what words/ideas are the same, which are different?
• Make some notes in Journal A on what the ‘different words’ mean.
• If you don’t understand what they mean, look them up
• Create your own definition using all the words/ideas from all three
definitions
• OR, use systems terminology to create a new definition like the next
slide
20

21. 3 definitions, for example
As we discuss this, note down key words
1. The Department of Health defines food poverty as 'The inability to
afford, or to have access to, food to make up a healthy diet.'5 Dec
2017
2. “jobs, using food banks and being afraid of not being able to pay
rent.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk › Education 10 Jan 2017
3. the insufficient economic access to an adequate quantity and
quality of food to maintain a nutritionally satisfactory, socially
acceptable diet….. a social dimension is recognised as a pertinent
factor to individual requirements given the influence of factors such
as education, skills, culture, preferences and emotional relationship
with products.
Niamh O'Connor, Karim Farag, Richard Baines, (2016) "What is food poverty? A conceptual framework", British Food
Journal, Vol. 118 Issue: 2, pp.429-449, https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/BFJ-06-2015-0222 21

22. Student Food system
• Poverty = the dysfunction, what poverties might we be considering?
• Financial, skills, experience, willingness?
• Student Food: what is the purpose of food (beyond just staying alive)?
• What is the outcome of a well functioning student food system at a
university?
• What parts, boundaries, processes and people might we expect to
find in this well functioning student food system?
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23. WORKING DEFINITION: student food poverty are dysfunctions
{financial, skills, insecurity, poverties} in a system of student food
provision that has the purpose of [keeping students fit and healthy]
and the parts of {shops, supermarkets, fast food outlets, delivery
services} with the outcomes of [improving educational outcomes],
involving the following people {friends, parents, caterers,
shopkeepers} and these processes {buying, preparing, cooking food
etc } and these boundaries {campus, halls, student house, home}.
Fill the words relevant to you in the {brackets} 23
nutritionally satisfactory, socially acceptable diet
A Systems thinking approach to a working definition

24. Week 6
• In Week 6, write up full class notes and complete Tasks A1 to A3
• Give them full Titles, i.e
• Task A1. Initial literature review:
• Task A2 Record your experiences:
• Task A3 Working Definition:
• So that they can be found and given draft marks
• Watch the Rachel McGrath film
• Watch BBC Eat Well for Less
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006pj1
• PS1 tutorials WILL go ahead as usual
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25. References
• Adams, D (1982) Life, the Universe and Everything. 2005 by Del Rey
(first published December 29th 1982)
• Ackoff, R (Feb., 1981) The Art and Science of Mess Management.
Interfaces Vol. 11, No. 1), pp. 20-26
• Checkland, P. (2000), Soft systems methodology: a thirty year
retrospective. Syst. Res., 17: S11-S58.
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