From leadership research to district action: Factors contributing to food choice in the UK secondary school food setting: a systems map perspective

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. Proposed district actions are separate from the original authors’ findings and recommendations. Independent peer review of this guide is not asserted.

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Evidence and transfer

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Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

Abstract Objective: To co-develop a systems map of the UK secondary school food system and to understand what factors contribute to food choice within it. Design: Participatory methods were used with a range of UK school stakeholders to co-produce a systems map of factors contributing to food choice in the secondary school food system. An online survey with stakeholders (n 26) was used to gather an initial list of factors, and a group model-building workshop was conducted with stakeholders (n 13) to establish relationships between these factors. Two school workshops captured the views of students (n 17). The map then underwent final refinement by the research team, and all stakeholders were provided the opportunity to provide feedback on the final version. Setting: United Kingdom. Participants: UK school stakeholders. Results: The systems map contained twenty-four factors with forty-three direct causal relationships between them, each factor falling into one of six themes: catering and procurement; school leadership and governance; the priority of food within schools; social experience, behaviours and attitudes; the food space and experience in school and financial. The map demonstrates how each of the factors interacts with each other, including the direction of influence. It also reveals feedback loops that shape and sustain food choice patterns in secondary schools. Conclusions: The systems map provides a visualisation of the complex secondary school food system and can be used by stakeholders in the design and evaluation of whole-school, multi-component interventions and programmes targeting food choice in secondary schools. Keywords: Food choice, School food, Children, Systems, Systems map, Causal loop diagram

Study methods

To create a systems map inclusive of the experiences and perspectives of multiple stakeholders within the system (i.e. the UK secondary school food system), we employed a number of participatory methods: (i) an online survey targeted to stakeholders; (ii) an online group model building workshop with diverse stakeholder representation and (iii) workshops with pupils from two secondary schools. Details of these methods follow.

Limitations

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A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one school improvement question with teachers. Protect a short shared planning cycle, agree an instructional change and use a common rubric for examining student work. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Review implementation fidelity, teacher time and independently scored student work against a recorded baseline. Examine access differences and competing explanations before attributing changes to leadership. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Niamh O’Kane; Ruth Hunter; Desiree Schliemann; Leandro Garcia; Jayne Woodside. Factors contributing to food choice in the UK secondary school food setting: a systems map perspective. Public Health Nutrition (2025-12-03). https://doi.org/10.1017/s136898002510147x

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.