Next Generation Nordic Diet Working with young people to create a Next Generation Nordic diet within a sustainable food system

The current food system threatens both human and planetary health. Unhealthy diets are responsible for over 11 million deaths globally every year. An unsustainable food system is a core driver of potentially irreversible climate and environmental degradation, including ecosystem loss, soil erosion, and depletion of water supplies. A shift towards healthier and more sustainable diets and a supportive food system is urgently needed to tackle these existential threats. Existing approaches trying to drive this critical shift have failed. The young will bear the greatest costs of harms of the failing food system, but are marginalized in policy making and excluded from shaping the responses required. Effective responses must therefore involve young people in identifying and creating the solutions that will improve the lives of future generations. In this project we will work with young people to draw on both their own crucial insights, and lessons from previous generations, to co-create a healthy, sustainable and accessible Next Generation Nordic Diet (NextGenDiet) and identify levers and find solutions for the food system to deliver that diet. We will use participatory action research (PAR) and systems thinking, working with local food system stakeholders in the ‘real world laboratory’ of a Norwegian municipality to i) define the NextGenDiet; ii) map the food system to identify levers that could reshape it to deliver this diet; iii) identify and prioritize solutions; iv) and evaluate the feasibility of these in our ‘real-world laboratory’. This transdisciplinary project will bring young people together with cross-sectoral local food system stakeholders, alongside experts in food, climate, public health, systems approaches and PAR. Through our exemplar municipality we will generate knowledge and build capacity to deliver a supportive, sustainable food system to create healthy and sustainable diets throughout Norway, now and into the future.

The current food system threatens both human and planetary health. Unhealthy diets are responsible for over 11 million deaths globally every year, while an unsustainable food system is a core driver of potentially irreversible climate and environmental degradation, including ecosystem loss, soil erosion, and depletion of water supplies. A shift towards healthier and more sustainable diets and a supportive food system is urgently needed to tackle these existential threats. Existing approaches trying to drive this critical shift have failed. The young will bear the greatest costs of harms of the failing food system, but are marginalized in policy making and excluded from shaping the responses required. Effective responses must therefore involve young people in identifying and creating the solutions that will improve the lives of future generations. In this project we will work with young people to draw on both their own crucial insights, and lessons from previous generations, to co-create a healthy, sustainable and accessible Next Generation Nordic Diet (NextGenDiet) and identify levers and find solutions for the food system to deliver that diet. We will use participatory action research (PAR) and systems thinking, working with local food system stakeholders in the ‘real world laboratory’ of a Norwegian municipality to i) define the NextGenDiet; ii) map the food system to identify levers that could reshape it to deliver this diet; iii) identify and prioritize solutions; iv) and evaluate the feasibility of these in our ‘real-world laboratory’. This transdisciplinary project will bring young people together with cross-sectoral local food system stakeholders, alongside experts in food, climate, public health, systems approaches and PAR. Through our exemplar municipality we will generate knowledge and build capacity to deliver a supportive, sustainable food system to create healthy and sustainable diets throughout Norway, now and into the future.