Pub Date : 2025-11-01DOI: 10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.101362
Ilknur Ayvaz , Sena Ak , Berfin Zomorody , Caglasu Gunes , Omer Kaya , Sedat Guldal , Seyhan Hıdıroglu
Background
Climate change is recognised as a major global threat to human health in the 21st century. Health professionals are expected to play a crucial role in mitigating climate-related health risks and preparing health systems for emerging challenges. This study aimed to assess the knowledge and awareness of climate change and health impacts among members working at the health faculties of a public university in Istanbul.
Methods
This descriptive study targeted 494 faculty members across four faculties: Medicine, Dentistry, Health Sciences, and Pharmacy. An online questionnaire was provided between December, 2021 and April, 2022. 217 members responded. The survey included sociodemographic questions and items assessing knowledge and awareness of climate change and its health effects. Data were analysed using Pearson’s Chi-Square and Fisher’s Exact tests, with statistical significance set at p<0·05. Ethics approval was obtained.
Findings
Only 82 (37·8%) of 217 members correctly defined climate change, although 191 (88%) believed climate change aff5cts personal health and n=193 (89%) expressed concern about climate change. 145 reported modifying consumption habits due to climate change, whereas only 53 (24·4%) integrated the topic into their teaching. There were significant differences between gender and health-related perceptions and between faculty type and support for including climate change in the curriculum (p<0·001).
Interpretation
Despite high concern levels, faculty members had limited knowledge and showed low integration of climate change into educational content. Enhancing education on climate change and health impacts in the health students' curriculum is essential for advancing planetary health awareness and action.
{"title":"Knowledge and awareness of climate change and its health impacts among members in health-related faculties in Istanbul","authors":"Ilknur Ayvaz , Sena Ak , Berfin Zomorody , Caglasu Gunes , Omer Kaya , Sedat Guldal , Seyhan Hıdıroglu","doi":"10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.101362","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.101362","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Climate change is recognised as a major global threat to human health in the 21st century. Health professionals are expected to play a crucial role in mitigating climate-related health risks and preparing health systems for emerging challenges. This study aimed to assess the knowledge and awareness of climate change and health impacts among members working at the health faculties of a public university in Istanbul.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>This descriptive study targeted 494 faculty members across four faculties: Medicine, Dentistry, Health Sciences, and Pharmacy. An online questionnaire was provided between December, 2021 and April, 2022. 217 members responded. The survey included sociodemographic questions and items assessing knowledge and awareness of climate change and its health effects. Data were analysed using Pearson’s Chi-Square and Fisher’s Exact tests, with statistical significance set at p<0·05. Ethics approval was obtained.</div></div><div><h3>Findings</h3><div>Only 82 (37·8%) of 217 members correctly defined climate change, although 191 (88%) believed climate change aff5cts personal health and n=193 (89%) expressed concern about climate change. 145 reported modifying consumption habits due to climate change, whereas only 53 (24·4%) integrated the topic into their teaching. There were significant differences between gender and health-related perceptions and between faculty type and support for including climate change in the curriculum (p<0·001).</div></div><div><h3>Interpretation</h3><div>Despite high concern levels, faculty members had limited knowledge and showed low integration of climate change into educational content. Enhancing education on climate change and health impacts in the health students' curriculum is essential for advancing planetary health awareness and action.</div></div><div><h3>Funding</h3><div>None.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48548,"journal":{"name":"Lancet Planetary Health","volume":"9 ","pages":"Article 101362"},"PeriodicalIF":21.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145617390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-01DOI: 10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.101326
Dario Krpan PhD , Frédéric Basso PhD , Prof Jason E Hickel PhD , Prof Giorgos Kallis PhD
<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Degrowth argues that high-income economies should reduce harmful production and prioritise wellbeing. Although degrowth is increasingly seen as essential to tackling climate change, the extent of public support for this economic approach remains unclear. In this study, we aimed to investigate public support for the full degrowth proposal in the UK and USA—high-income, growth-oriented nations with substantial climate responsibility and political resistance to degrowth. Our objectives were to distinguish support for the proposal itself from perceptions of the degrowth label and to examine the role of participants’ individual differences.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>Our objectives were examined in two studies, Study 1 and Study 2, administered online via Qualtrics. For both studies, participants in the USA and UK were recruited via Prolific (an online pool of participants) to be representative of the respective populations in age, gender, and ethnicity. Participants had to pass several attention and quality checks to qualify for analyses. Study 1 used a within-subjects design whereby all participants rated their support for the full degrowth proposal (summarising the key ideas, practices, and goals of degrowth) without any label and for eight economic approaches presented by label only (ie, degrowth, ecomodernism, ecosocialism, green capitalism, green growth, green market economy, post growth, and wellbeing economy) on a 7-point scale (from 1 [strongly oppose] to 7 [strongly support]). Study 2 used a between-subjects design whereby participants were randomly assigned using the randomiser function in Qualtrics, to one of seven economic approaches (the full degrowth proposal; a label referring to either degrowth, ecosocialism, or wellbeing economy without a description; or a combination of the full degrowth proposal with one of these three labels), for which they rated their support on the same 7-point scale. Mean support for each approach was classified on the basis of 95% CIs, meaning that similar means could be classified differently across studies and samples due to variations in these intervals. To identify key predictors of support, we also measured 74 individual differences, including various psychological and socioeconomic characteristics, and analysed them using an approach combining widely used machine learning models with multiple linear regression analyses; a variable was considered a key predictor only if it ranked among the most predictive in the machine learning models and was also statistically significant in the regression analyses.</div></div><div><h3>Findings</h3><div>Data were collected from study participants between Oct 10, 2023, and Dec 1, 2023. 6228 participants from the UK and USA were initially recruited, of whom 5454 were eligible for analyses. When presented without a label, in the UK, the full degrowth proposal received support from 736 (81%) of 910 participants in Study 1 and 210 (82%
{"title":"Assessing public support for degrowth: survey-based experimental and predictive studies","authors":"Dario Krpan PhD , Frédéric Basso PhD , Prof Jason E Hickel PhD , Prof Giorgos Kallis PhD","doi":"10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.101326","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.101326","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Degrowth argues that high-income economies should reduce harmful production and prioritise wellbeing. Although degrowth is increasingly seen as essential to tackling climate change, the extent of public support for this economic approach remains unclear. In this study, we aimed to investigate public support for the full degrowth proposal in the UK and USA—high-income, growth-oriented nations with substantial climate responsibility and political resistance to degrowth. Our objectives were to distinguish support for the proposal itself from perceptions of the degrowth label and to examine the role of participants’ individual differences.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>Our objectives were examined in two studies, Study 1 and Study 2, administered online via Qualtrics. For both studies, participants in the USA and UK were recruited via Prolific (an online pool of participants) to be representative of the respective populations in age, gender, and ethnicity. Participants had to pass several attention and quality checks to qualify for analyses. Study 1 used a within-subjects design whereby all participants rated their support for the full degrowth proposal (summarising the key ideas, practices, and goals of degrowth) without any label and for eight economic approaches presented by label only (ie, degrowth, ecomodernism, ecosocialism, green capitalism, green growth, green market economy, post growth, and wellbeing economy) on a 7-point scale (from 1 [strongly oppose] to 7 [strongly support]). Study 2 used a between-subjects design whereby participants were randomly assigned using the randomiser function in Qualtrics, to one of seven economic approaches (the full degrowth proposal; a label referring to either degrowth, ecosocialism, or wellbeing economy without a description; or a combination of the full degrowth proposal with one of these three labels), for which they rated their support on the same 7-point scale. Mean support for each approach was classified on the basis of 95% CIs, meaning that similar means could be classified differently across studies and samples due to variations in these intervals. To identify key predictors of support, we also measured 74 individual differences, including various psychological and socioeconomic characteristics, and analysed them using an approach combining widely used machine learning models with multiple linear regression analyses; a variable was considered a key predictor only if it ranked among the most predictive in the machine learning models and was also statistically significant in the regression analyses.</div></div><div><h3>Findings</h3><div>Data were collected from study participants between Oct 10, 2023, and Dec 1, 2023. 6228 participants from the UK and USA were initially recruited, of whom 5454 were eligible for analyses. When presented without a label, in the UK, the full degrowth proposal received support from 736 (81%) of 910 participants in Study 1 and 210 (82%","PeriodicalId":48548,"journal":{"name":"Lancet Planetary Health","volume":"9 11","pages":"Article 101326"},"PeriodicalIF":21.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145679212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Food education in schools is increasingly being adopted as one of the key policy levers to support the shift towards healthier and more sustainable food practices worldwide. However, the way in which food education is designed and implemented is not often conducive to such goals. We propose a food learning model and process for designing holistic food education that fosters food competent children and adolescents as catalysts for change. The model applies evidence-based core principles required for effective food education, such as action-oriented goals that align with a student's contexts, co-ownership of the learning process, prioritising experiential learning, ensuring purposeful interactions, complementarity with the school food environment and beyond, and meaningful involvement of actors that influence children's food practices and perspectives. The process for designing food education programmes is anchored in the food learning model and highlights the importance of selecting the right entry points in the formal school system, assessment of learning needs, co-formulating competences, and the need for continuous and purposeful assessments of students' learning. We highlight the key challenges beyond programme design that must be addressed to enhance the success of food education, including the need to strengthen systemic capacity and improve the wider policy environment.
{"title":"Putting food at the centre of learning: an evidence-based and practice-informed model of holistic food education in schools","authors":"Melissa Vargas MSc , Cristina Álvarez Sánchez PhD , Vilma Tyler MSc , Fatima Hachem PhD","doi":"10.1016/S2542-5196(25)00033-6","DOIUrl":"10.1016/S2542-5196(25)00033-6","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Food education in schools is increasingly being adopted as one of the key policy levers to support the shift towards healthier and more sustainable food practices worldwide. However, the way in which food education is designed and implemented is not often conducive to such goals. We propose a food learning model and process for designing holistic food education that fosters food competent children and adolescents as catalysts for change. The model applies evidence-based core principles required for effective food education, such as action-oriented goals that align with a student's contexts, co-ownership of the learning process, prioritising experiential learning, ensuring purposeful interactions, complementarity with the school food environment and beyond, and meaningful involvement of actors that influence children's food practices and perspectives. The process for designing food education programmes is anchored in the food learning model and highlights the importance of selecting the right entry points in the formal school system, assessment of learning needs, co-formulating competences, and the need for continuous and purposeful assessments of students' learning. We highlight the key challenges beyond programme design that must be addressed to enhance the success of food education, including the need to strengthen systemic capacity and improve the wider policy environment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48548,"journal":{"name":"Lancet Planetary Health","volume":"9 11","pages":"Article 101219"},"PeriodicalIF":21.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144144079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-01DOI: 10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.06.002
Prof Marco Springmann PhD , Manasi P Hansoge MSc , Linda Schultz MPH , Silvia Pastorino PhD , Prof Donald A P Bundy
Background
School meal programmes are thought to improve dietary behaviour in children, with benefits sustained throughout the life course, making them important catalysts for wider food-system change. However, only one in five children globally currently receives school meals. We estimated the potential effects of extending school meal coverage to all children by 2030 for dietary health; the environmental effects related to diets; and the costs of diets at global, regional, and national levels.
Methods
We conducted health, environmental, and cost assessments of future scenarios of school meal coverage, meal frequency, meal composition, and food wastage. In the health assessment, we used statistical methods and a comparative risk assessment to estimate short-term changes in undernourishment and long-term changes in dietary risks and mortality. In the environmental assessment, we used food-related environmental footprints to analyse how changes in dietary composition and food waste affect greenhouse gas emissions, land use, and freshwater use. In the cost assessment, we used an international dataset of food prices to estimate changes in diet costs, and we used estimates of the social cost of carbon and the costs of illness to estimate changes in the costs of climate-change damages and in health-related costs.
Findings
Extending school meal programmes to all children globally by 2030 could be associated with substantial health and environmental benefits globally and in each country. In the model assessments, the prevalence of undernourishment in food-insecure populations was reduced by a quarter due to having an additional meal at school; more than 1 million cases of non-communicable diseases were prevented globally per year if dietary habits were partly sustained into adulthood; and food-related environmental effects were halved if meal composition adhered to recommendations for healthy and sustainable diets and food waste was reduced. Increasing school meal coverage incurred additional meal-related costs that ranged from 0·1% of gross domestic product (GDP) in high-income countries to 1·0% of GDP in low-income countries. Reductions in the external costs of climate-change damages and the costs of illness compensated for the costs of providing meals in line with health and sustainable diets.
Interpretation
Universal school meal coverage could make important contributions to improving children’s health, the food security of their families, and the sustainability of food systems. However, dedicated policy and financial support will be required to close the gap in school meal coverage, especially in low-income countries.
Funding
Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition.
{"title":"The health, environmental, and cost implications of providing healthy and sustainable school meals for every child by 2030: a global modelling study","authors":"Prof Marco Springmann PhD , Manasi P Hansoge MSc , Linda Schultz MPH , Silvia Pastorino PhD , Prof Donald A P Bundy","doi":"10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.06.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.06.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>School meal programmes are thought to improve dietary behaviour in children, with benefits sustained throughout the life course, making them important catalysts for wider food-system change. However, only one in five children globally currently receives school meals. We estimated the potential effects of extending school meal coverage to all children by 2030 for dietary health; the environmental effects related to diets; and the costs of diets at global, regional, and national levels.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>We conducted health, environmental, and cost assessments of future scenarios of school meal coverage, meal frequency, meal composition, and food wastage. In the health assessment, we used statistical methods and a comparative risk assessment to estimate short-term changes in undernourishment and long-term changes in dietary risks and mortality. In the environmental assessment, we used food-related environmental footprints to analyse how changes in dietary composition and food waste affect greenhouse gas emissions, land use, and freshwater use. In the cost assessment, we used an international dataset of food prices to estimate changes in diet costs, and we used estimates of the social cost of carbon and the costs of illness to estimate changes in the costs of climate-change damages and in health-related costs.</div></div><div><h3>Findings</h3><div>Extending school meal programmes to all children globally by 2030 could be associated with substantial health and environmental benefits globally and in each country. In the model assessments, the prevalence of undernourishment in food-insecure populations was reduced by a quarter due to having an additional meal at school; more than 1 million cases of non-communicable diseases were prevented globally per year if dietary habits were partly sustained into adulthood; and food-related environmental effects were halved if meal composition adhered to recommendations for healthy and sustainable diets and food waste was reduced. Increasing school meal coverage incurred additional meal-related costs that ranged from 0·1% of gross domestic product (GDP) in high-income countries to 1·0% of GDP in low-income countries. Reductions in the external costs of climate-change damages and the costs of illness compensated for the costs of providing meals in line with health and sustainable diets.</div></div><div><h3>Interpretation</h3><div>Universal school meal coverage could make important contributions to improving children’s health, the food security of their families, and the sustainability of food systems. However, dedicated policy and financial support will be required to close the gap in school meal coverage, especially in low-income countries.</div></div><div><h3>Funding</h3><div>Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48548,"journal":{"name":"Lancet Planetary Health","volume":"9 11","pages":"Article 101278"},"PeriodicalIF":21.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145087743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-01DOI: 10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.101356
Shih-Chun Candice Lung , Jou-Chen Joy Yeh , Jing-Shiang Hwang
Background
Amid global heating, establishing a heat-health warning system (HHWS) is crucial for reducing heat-related health risks. This paper presents an evidence-based HHWS app developed through stakeholder engagement.
Methods
Biometeorological, epidemiological, and risk communication challenges of heat-health risks across Taiwan were identified. To address these challenges we developed an app based HHWS, in collaboration with the Central Weather Administration and Health Promotion Administration in Taiwan.
Findings
Biometeorological results showed that the mean daily maximum wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGTmax) was 33·1 ± 3·8°C at 20 stations across Taiwan but could reach or exceed 36°C (threshold of the dangerous category) at some hot spots for 42·3–52·0% of the days between May and October from 2016 to 2022. Hot spots and periods identified using WBGT would be missed if temperature alone was used as the heat indicator. The relative risk (RR) for the heat-related emergency visits was 1·83 (95% CI 1·68–1·99) on day 0 when WBGT exceeded 32·5°C across Taiwan, based on a modified generalised additive model. Children aged 0–14 years had the highest RR (8·32, 1·96–35·3) on day 0, compared to adults aged 15–64 years and older. For risk communication, the frequency of warnings was evaluated to avoid excessive alerts, which could desensitise the public and strain resources of the authorities responsible for executing timely responsive programmes.
Interpretation
The developed HHWS was embedded in a mobile phone app, which all residents in Taiwan can download.
Funding
National Science and Technology Council Executive Yuan, Taiwan.
{"title":"Establishing an app-based heat-health warning system via collaboration with stakeholders","authors":"Shih-Chun Candice Lung , Jou-Chen Joy Yeh , Jing-Shiang Hwang","doi":"10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.101356","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.101356","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Amid global heating, establishing a heat-health warning system (HHWS) is crucial for reducing heat-related health risks. This paper presents an evidence-based HHWS app developed through stakeholder engagement.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>Biometeorological, epidemiological, and risk communication challenges of heat-health risks across Taiwan were identified. To address these challenges we developed an app based HHWS, in collaboration with the Central Weather Administration and Health Promotion Administration in Taiwan.</div></div><div><h3>Findings</h3><div>Biometeorological results showed that the mean daily maximum wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGTmax) was 33·1 ± 3·8°C at 20 stations across Taiwan but could reach or exceed 36°C (threshold of the dangerous category) at some hot spots for 42·3–52·0% of the days between May and October from 2016 to 2022. Hot spots and periods identified using WBGT would be missed if temperature alone was used as the heat indicator. The relative risk (RR) for the heat-related emergency visits was 1·83 (95% CI 1·68–1·99) on day 0 when WBGT exceeded 32·5°C across Taiwan, based on a modified generalised additive model. Children aged 0–14 years had the highest RR (8·32, 1·96–35·3) on day 0, compared to adults aged 15–64 years and older. For risk communication, the frequency of warnings was evaluated to avoid excessive alerts, which could desensitise the public and strain resources of the authorities responsible for executing timely responsive programmes.</div></div><div><h3>Interpretation</h3><div>The developed HHWS was embedded in a mobile phone app, which all residents in Taiwan can download.</div></div><div><h3>Funding</h3><div>National Science and Technology Council Executive Yuan, Taiwan.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48548,"journal":{"name":"Lancet Planetary Health","volume":"9 ","pages":"Article 101356"},"PeriodicalIF":21.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145617304","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-01DOI: 10.1016/S2542-5196(25)00004-X
Yesmeen Khalifa PhD , Prof Matthew Leach PhD , Richard Sieff PhD , Jerome Nsengiyaremye PhD , Beryl Onjala MA , Karlijn Groen MSc , Francesco Fuso Nerini PhD , Camilo Ramirez MSc , Raffaella Bellanca PhD
Approximately 418 million children are beneficiaries of school meal programmes globally. In general, supportive infrastructure is necessary for the successful delivery of school meals, but in many low-income and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs), schools have poor access to essential facilities such as kitchens, electricity, and clean water. Moreover, schools in LLMICs often rely on charcoal or firewood for cooking with consequent negative health, social, economic, and environmental impacts that disproportionally affect women and children. The increasing availability of electricity and large energy efficient cooking appliances in LLMICs suggests that electric cooking could offer a potential solution. However, although the impacts of providing electricity to schools on educational outcomes have been explored, and the scope for electric cooking transitions at household level is increasingly studied, evidence on the role of electricity in providing sustainable school meals remains scarce, particularly in LLMICs. Most existing studies on school meals focus on the health and nutritional values of school meals and do not consider the energy used in their preparation or associated impacts. To address this gap, this Personal View explores the contribution of electric cooking to providing sustainable school meals. Recent case studies from Kenya, Lesotho, Nepal, and Guinea that introduced electric cooking as an alternative to traditional cooking fuels have shown how electric cooking can contribute to providing sustainable schools meals in LLMICs. This Personal View highlights multiple sustainable benefits from shifting to electric cooking, which include environmental, economic, and health benefits, and time saving, with potential gender benefits intersecting these domains. Sharing lessons learned from each study could improve the delivery and effectiveness of these interventions for other schools, and understanding the range of contexts and challenges could help towards programme design for wider scaling of sustainable school meal provision.
{"title":"The role of electric cooking in providing sustainable school meals in low-income and lower-middle-income countries","authors":"Yesmeen Khalifa PhD , Prof Matthew Leach PhD , Richard Sieff PhD , Jerome Nsengiyaremye PhD , Beryl Onjala MA , Karlijn Groen MSc , Francesco Fuso Nerini PhD , Camilo Ramirez MSc , Raffaella Bellanca PhD","doi":"10.1016/S2542-5196(25)00004-X","DOIUrl":"10.1016/S2542-5196(25)00004-X","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Approximately 418 million children are beneficiaries of school meal programmes globally. In general, supportive infrastructure is necessary for the successful delivery of school meals, but in many low-income and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs), schools have poor access to essential facilities such as kitchens, electricity, and clean water. Moreover, schools in LLMICs often rely on charcoal or firewood for cooking with consequent negative health, social, economic, and environmental impacts that disproportionally affect women and children. The increasing availability of electricity and large energy efficient cooking appliances in LLMICs suggests that electric cooking could offer a potential solution. However, although the impacts of providing electricity to schools on educational outcomes have been explored, and the scope for electric cooking transitions at household level is increasingly studied, evidence on the role of electricity in providing sustainable school meals remains scarce, particularly in LLMICs. Most existing studies on school meals focus on the health and nutritional values of school meals and do not consider the energy used in their preparation or associated impacts. To address this gap, this Personal View explores the contribution of electric cooking to providing sustainable school meals. Recent case studies from Kenya, Lesotho, Nepal, and Guinea that introduced electric cooking as an alternative to traditional cooking fuels have shown how electric cooking can contribute to providing sustainable schools meals in LLMICs. This Personal View highlights multiple sustainable benefits from shifting to electric cooking, which include environmental, economic, and health benefits, and time saving, with potential gender benefits intersecting these domains. Sharing lessons learned from each study could improve the delivery and effectiveness of these interventions for other schools, and understanding the range of contexts and challenges could help towards programme design for wider scaling of sustainable school meal provision.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48548,"journal":{"name":"Lancet Planetary Health","volume":"9 11","pages":"Article 101204"},"PeriodicalIF":21.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143587715","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Physical inactivity and sedentary lifestyles are now accepted as major contributors to metabolic harm and disorder in the 21st century. These harms are frequently framed as a result of individual choices, with solutions leaning into personal responsibility. There are, however, crucial structural influences on individuals’ capacity to engage with so-called lifestyle advice. In particular, the way in which structural environments influence labour, lives, and communities can present several barriers to exercise and physical activity. These pressures, and their consequences, have particular and compounding effects on those who are economically and socially marginalised. When scientific and clinical literature overlooks these structural determinants of lifestyle, the effectiveness of interventions are undermined, or even worse, intervention failure reinforces judgement and isolation, which cements metabolically harmful behaviours. In this Viewpoint, we call for renewed focus on how social structures influence physical activity to characterise the injustices underpinning current metabolic health and harm.
{"title":"Physical activity in context: the systems and inequalities of metabolic harm","authors":"Prof Alex Broom PhD , Imogen Harper PhD , Prof Jakelin Troy PhD , Prof Louise Baur PhD , Prof Emmanuel Stamatakis PhD","doi":"10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.101323","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.101323","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Physical inactivity and sedentary lifestyles are now accepted as major contributors to metabolic harm and disorder in the 21st century. These harms are frequently framed as a result of individual choices, with solutions leaning into personal responsibility. There are, however, crucial structural influences on individuals’ capacity to engage with so-called lifestyle advice. In particular, the way in which structural environments influence labour, lives, and communities can present several barriers to exercise and physical activity. These pressures, and their consequences, have particular and compounding effects on those who are economically and socially marginalised. When scientific and clinical literature overlooks these structural determinants of lifestyle, the effectiveness of interventions are undermined, or even worse, intervention failure reinforces judgement and isolation, which cements metabolically harmful behaviours. In this Viewpoint, we call for renewed focus on how social structures influence physical activity to characterise the injustices underpinning current metabolic health and harm.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48548,"journal":{"name":"Lancet Planetary Health","volume":"9 11","pages":"Article 101323"},"PeriodicalIF":21.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145126307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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