Global food systems are failing children and adolescents. Poor diet quality is driving malnutrition among adolescents around the world. The quality of food eaten by adolescents not only determines their health and development but is also the foundation of thriving communities. With 1.3 billion adolescents (10-19 years), forming 16 percent of the world’s population (UNICEF Data 2023), investment in the transition from childhood to adulthood during this critical period of growth is crucial.

To develop a truly child-centred food system, we need to understand how children navigate their food environments, deciding what to eat, where to eat, and where to buy it. To do this we used a novel distributed data generation method to consult with 1,300 children and adolescents from over 30 countries to document their needs, experiences and aspirations in relation to nutrition, food environments and food systems. We published two companion reports to UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children 2019 report and a seminal report on how young people engage with their food systems globally.

This presentation will showcase what young people told us about a range of barriers which impact their ability to consume foods that are healthy, nutritious, and sustainable. We will also highlight how children and young people want to be engaged in the food system transformation.

Join us to hear recommendations from children and adolescents across the world and what they identified as urgent actions needed to transform food systems and reduce the negative impact on young people and their environment.

Dr Catharine Fleming is a Lecturer in Public Health in the School Health Science, Western Sydney University and is Stream Co-Lead for Youth Participation and Engagement in the Young and Resilient Research Centre. Dr Fleming has a PhD in paediatric nutrition and dietetics and over 15 years’ experience in paediatric nutrition relating to infant and young child feeding, paediatric food allergy and childhood obesity. Dr Fleming has research experience in mixed methods, co design, clinical and public health research methodologies covering quantitative, qualitative and data linkage studies. This experience has involved working with families, children and population-based data in paediatric nutrition in a variety of clinical, community and global settings. Dr Fleming is building a body of work focusing on protecting against lifelong chronic disease through investigating different aspects of feeding and diet in the most teachable moments of childhood and adolescence. Dr Fleming is passionate about ensuring a sustainable nutritional change occurs for children and adolescents through co-designed and development of interventions and policies by young people for young people.

Date and Time: Wednesday 8th November, 2023, 12 noon to 1pm

Location: Western Sydney University, Parramatta City Campus, Peter Shergold Building, Level 9, Conference room 2 (PC-01.9.16) or online via Zoom.

Registrations for this hybrid event are essential.