Grant: DRA: Canada Impact+ Research Training Awards - Doctoral

"School meals improve children's health, reduce inequities, and support more sustainable food systems. Canada’s new National School Food Program aims to ensure that all children have access to nutritious food at school, yet schools currently lack a clear way to assess whether their menus meet nutritional, equity, and sustainability goals. The central question of this research is: how can we reliably measure the quality of Canadian school menus in terms of nutrition, planetary health, and cultural relevance? This doctoral project will develop and validate the Canadian School Food Menu Assessment Index, a stakeholder-co-designed tool that evaluates school menus and food environments across five dimensions: nutritional adequacy based on Canada’s Food Guide, limitation of ultra-processed foods, alignment with planetary health principles, cultural appropriateness including Indigenous food sovereignty, and sustainability practices such as local procurement and waste reduction. The study will adapt lessons from Brazil’s long-standing National School Feeding Program and its validated menu assessment tools to the Canadian context, ensuring both scientific rigor and practical feasibility. The research will proceed in three phases: (1) defining core principles and indicators through policy review and expert consultation; (2) pilot testing the tool in Saskatchewan schools to assess feasibility, inter-rater reliability, and construct validity with feedback from school staff; and (3) applying the refined index in case study sites across Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. This project will generate evidence to monitor and improve school menus nationally, supporting Canada’s commitments to nutrition security, health equity, and environmentally sustainable school food systems."