Christine Persson Osowski

• Associate Professor, RD
• Lecturer at Mälardalen University

Background Recently, numerous initiatives have been taken to improve food and meals for hospital inpatients. Research providing in-depth knowledge on leading such improvement initiatives and implementing changes, specifically through facilitation within this multilevel context, is essential. This study aims to explore nutrition leaders’ experiences...

In Sweden, approximately a quarter of upper secondary school students leave school early or do not complete their studies with full grades. Structured leisure time activities have been associated with improved health, enhanced school performance, and future college attendance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to gain an understanding of how ado...

Background Postsecondary students need to be able to handle self-regulated learning and manage schedules set by instructors. This is particularly the case with online courses, as they often come with a limited number of social reminders and less information directly from the teacher compared to courses with physical presence. This may increase proc...

Retailers' food waste, often consisting of edible food, could be reduced, while simultaneously tackling food insecurity, through surplus food donations to vulnerable groups. However, sustainability assessments of food donations covering all three sustainability perspectives are scarce, hampering decision-makers in prioritizing donation as a food wa...

There is a preconception among kitchen staff that the most popular school meals drive food waste in Swedish school catering and that vegetarian dishes increase food waste, despite being less popular than meat options. By applying mixed methods, this study investigated possible goal conflicts between reduced food waste, high acceptance, and vegetari...

Background East African countries face significant societal challenges related to sustainable development goals but have limited resources to address these problems, including a shortage of nutrition experts and health care workers, limited access to physical and digital infrastructure, and a shortage of advanced educational programs and continuing...

BACKGROUND Students enrolled in online courses need to be able to handle self-regulated learning and to plan, prioritize and manage schedules set by online instructors. Reminders may be a potential tool to improve the timeliness of students’ study behaviour, but previous research shows that the effect of reminders differs between types of reminders...

Surplus food redistribution can be a way to relieve co-existing food insecurity and food waste. The food waste hierarchy ranks surplus food donations for human consumption as the next best strategy, when food waste cannot be prevented. However, the effectiveness of food donation in terms of the amount consumed, or food donation as a food waste mana...

Public food service organizations are large producers of food waste, which leads to greenhouse gas emissions and the waste of natural resources. The aim of the present article was to gain insight into reasons for food waste and possible solutions for lowering food waste in schools in Sweden. In order to do so, food waste quantification in school c...

To move towards a sustainable food system, we cannot continue to waste substantial amounts of the food produced. This is especially true for later stages in the food supply chain, where most sub-processes consume resources in vain when food is wasted. Hospitals are located at the end of the food supply chain and the sector has high levels of food w...

We examine public trust and distrust in governmental food and nutrition authorities, through analyzing 727 letters sent electronically to the Swedish National Food Agency by lay people. Using thematic analysis, four themes were developed, defining public expressions of trust and distrust in official dietary advice. Trust was expressed as (a) seekin...

The present article concerns meals from the point of view of children, focusing on structural and socio‐cultural aspects of meals in a western context in general, and Sweden in particular. The aim was to study children's perceptions of meals with regard to what, where and with whom meals are eaten and how meals are made. The method used was an inte...

Since food waste valorisation measures, like energy recovery, have limited possibilities to fully recover the resources invested in food production, there is a need to prevent food waste. Prevention is most important at the end of the value chain, where most sub-processes have already taken place, like in catering facilities. In Sweden, the public...

Background Children are provided with food at school in various ways. In Sweden, free school lunches are provided to all children of compulsory school age. Internationally, Sweden is fairly unique in this sense, which makes the country an important example to study and reflect upon. Objective This article aims to describe the welfare ideology that...

The Child Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ) is a well-established instrument in the study of obesity-related eating behaviours among children. However, research using the CEBQ in multicultural samples is limited. This study aims to identify and examine differences in child eating behaviours as reported by Swedish-born and non-Swedish-born mothe...

Purpose To explore how stakeholders in the food and nutrition field construct and conceptualize “appropriate” national dietary advice. Design/methodology/approach Forty voluntarily written stakeholder responses to updated official dietary guidelines in Sweden were analysed thematically. The analysis explored the logics and arguments employed by...

Food waste in the food services industry has been identified as an important unsustainability hotspot, but standardised methods for food waste quantification are lacking. Existing studies on waste quantity assessments have several limitations, such as short and infrequent quantifications times, large methodological variations ranging from physical...

The Child Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ) is a well-established instrument in the study of obesity-relatedeating behaviours among children. However, research using the CEBQ in multicultural samples is limited. This study aims to identify and examine differences in child eating behaviours as reported by Swedish-born and non-Swedishborn mothers...

Public sector food services are a major contributor to food waste generation in Sweden, with schools, preschools, elderly care homes, hospitals etc. producing approximately 70 000 ton of food waste per year. Sweden already has appropriate infrastructure for treating this waste to recycle nutrients and energy, but there is still great potential to m...

Aims: School lunches are provided free in Sweden, although some children choose not to eat school lunch. The aim of this study was to analyse Swedish children's total energy and nutrient intakes on weekdays by the frequency of school lunch consumption and to analyse energy and nutrient intakes from school lunches by sex. Factors associated with ch...

Food waste is a major problem that must be reduced in order to achieve a sustainable food supply chain. Since food waste valorisation measures, like energy recovery, have limited possibilities to fully recover the resources invested in food production, there is a need to prevent food waste. Prevention is most important at the end of the value chain...

We will scrutinize value challenges faced by public food procurement managers to ensure multiple values are met within a limited budget and under current regulations. The current highly complex foo ...

Background: In Sweden, school meals are served free of charge and Swedish law states that school meals must be nutritious. Nevertheless, data on children's energy and nutrient intake from school meals are scarce. Objective: The aim was to describe the contribution of school meals to Swedish children's nutrient and energy intake during weekdays a...

This study used focus group discussions to investigate how a group of Swedish University students (24 women and 5 men) interpret symbols with claims about health and/or symbols with information about nutrition. The participants mostly talked about farming methods and food processes when asked about health and nutrition symbols. The Swedish Keyhole...

Objective: School meals are also a teaching occasion in which children learn about food and meals, which is referred to as "pedagogic meals" in Sweden. The aim of the present article was to study how the pedagogic meal is practiced in preschool and school settings, with focus on how teachers acted when interacting with the children. Design: Obse...

The aim of this thesis is to study what role the Swedish school meal has as a public meal in Swedish culture. An additional aim is to study the meal patterns of children, including the school meal. An ethnological questionnaire with 192 informants was used to study people’s perceptions and memories of the school meal. The school meal was seen as p...

Children come into contact with food in different places and contexts, i.e. ‘foodscapes’. The aim of the paper was to study what knowledge children construct regarding food and meals in the foodscape at school and how they do so, focusing on the school meal context. Observations, interviews and focus group interviews were used. The children appropr...

Dietary assessment in children is associated with misreporting, which is a problem with both child and parent reports. Therefore, it is of interest to study how children and parents report children's eating, respectively, although comparative studies are rare. The aim of the present article was to study the meal patterns and intake of certain snack...

The aim of the present article was to gain a deeper understanding of the free school meal as an embedded phenomenon in the Swedish culture. This was achieved by studying perceptions and memories of the Swedish school meal. One hundred and ninety-two informants took part in the study by responding to an ethnological questionnaire. The results showed...