The document provides a working definition of student food poverty from a systems thinking perspective. It defines student food poverty as dysfunctions (such as financial issues, lack of skills or security) within the system of student food provision. This system aims to keep students fit and healthy through parts like shops, supermarkets and fast food outlets. The outcomes should be improving educational attainment by involving people like friends, parents and caterers through processes of buying, cooking and preparing food, within boundaries like campus, halls or student housing. The working definition is complex but aims to provide a thorough and useful framing of student food poverty as a systems issue.

1. Week 2 Working Definition
Using Systems Thinking
1£500?

2. We need to have a rough idea of what to
investigate
• We don’t know precisely what we are investigating
• We need to know whether anyone else has encountered it before
• We need to reflect on whether we have encountered something
similar ourselves
• We then need to derive a working definition to set a limit and scope
to our investigation going forward
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3. An example of some literature
• Tobin, K. J. (2013) Fast‐food consumption and educational test scores
in the USA Child: Care, Health and Development, Vol.39(1), pp.118-
124
• “which controlled for 25 student background characteristics,
higher‐than‐average fast‐food consumption (‘four to six times in the last 7
days’ or more) was associated with significantly lower test scores in both
reading (−11.15 points or 0.48 SD) and math (−11.13 points or 0.52 SD),
even when teacher experience, school poverty level and school urbanicity
were also included in the model”.
• How relevant could this be to university students in Northampton?
• We may conclude that almost nobody is researching this in the UK
• We are doing something unique and new here
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5. 3 definitions, for example
1. The Department of Health (5 Dec 2017) defines food poverty as
'The inability to afford, or to have access to, food to make up a healthy
diet.'
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
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6. Lets try a different approach
The classroom as a purposeful system
• Purpose:
• Parts:
• Processes:
• People:
• Boundaries:
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7. Hard systems- cogs and wheels
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Y
Y
Y
Technically complicated, but component parts are simple

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

9. 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

10. Student Food system
• Poverty = the dysfunction, what poverties might we be considering?
• Financial, skills, experience, confidence, 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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11. 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}.
This is complicated, but (believe me) more thorough and useful
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A Systems thinking approach to a working definition

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13. 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}.
This is complicated, but (believe me) more thorough and useful
13
A Systems thinking approach to a working definition

14. Dysfunction = the social problem
• student food poverty are dysfunctions {financial, skills, insecurity,
poverties} in a system of student food provision
• Grown up with poor parents, limited cooking skills, only knows ‘meat
and two boiled veg’ type cooking
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15. Purpose
• purpose of [keeping students fit and healthy]
• Doesn’t know what foods are best for keeping healthy, tried to be
vegetarian, long term malnutrition from childhood, unaware of
protein and iron depletion, severely anaemic
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16. Parts
• parts of {shops, supermarkets, fast food outlets, delivery services}
• No car, had to walk to shops, limited access to fresh vegetables, no
freezer in house, limited space in shared fridge in shared house, lived
on cheap tuna sandwiches from Students’ Union
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17. Outcomes
• outcomes of [improving educational outcomes],
• Severe anaemia led to inability to concentrate, constant need to
sleep, tiredness, needed to access mitigating circumstances
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18. People
• involving the following people {friends, parents, caterers,
shopkeepers}
• Parental influence on cooking is limited to zero
• TV influence Ready Steady Cook Ainsley Harriot
• Not cooking with friends
• Grandmother cooking Spaghetti Bolognese generated interest in
‘Mediterranean food’
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19. Processes
• processes {buying, preparing, cooking food etc }
• Walking to and from one superstore 2miles away, 40 minute walk,
using rucksack
• Limited cooking utensils, stirfry pan, shared shelf in fridge, and one
pantry shelf
• Pre-internet, no access to recipes.
• Cheap ready-made meals at Students Union
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20. Boundaries
• boundaries {campus, halls, student house, home}.
• Only lived at Uni, didn’t go home for 4 years, lived in halls, fully
catered in first year, then private rent for 2/3 year, rented room as
postgrad, surviving on veggie stirfries and tuna sandwiches
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