A new project at Lancaster University Management School is seeking ways to positively change people’s diets by engaging with households across the Lancaster and Morecambe area.

Exploring Social Practices and the Organization Of food Networks for sustainable and healthy diets (SPOON) will explore the relationship between food infrastructures (e.g. what food is available where, and how), everyday practices (e.g. people’s routines) and diets.

The two-year project is being led by Dr Josi Fernandes, a Lecturer in the Department of Marketing, and has been funded by a £10,000 grant from the British Academy Leverhulme scheme. It starts in mid-November.

“I want to understand the everyday lives of people in Morecambe and Lancaster when it comes to eating and their diets,” said Dr Fernandes. “This is an area where the lack of access to adequate nutrition is accentuated, but also where we can find a spread of household shapes, income brackets, and routines.

“Poor diets are not an issue affecting only low-income households, and because of its diversity, this area is a rich context to explore such an important topic.

“A lot has been done in terms of addressing micronutrient deficiency, obesity, and other diet-related health issues across the UK, with long-standing policies and programmes such as the Eat Well Guide and 5 A Day. But the problem keeps growing, even though if you talk to people, they say they want to eat better and be healthier.

“My argument is that previous efforts have not worked because they are prescriptive. They are telling people what they should do, but they do not consider why people do what they are doing, why diets are not changing.

“At a population level across the UK, we have micronutrient deficiency, obesity, heart disease, all sorts of issues associated with diets” Obesity may imply wide availability and overconsumption of food, but recent studies show that in middle to high income nations such as the UK obesity is increasingly becoming a strong predictor of food insecurity.

“This raises questions about what type of food is making up diets that are leading to an increasingly obese, yet malnourished UK population. If you understand how practices leading to these outcomes are normalised, we can learn how to instigate change.”

Dr Fernandes will talk to households from across the area, involving people from different backgrounds, income brackets, and parts of the district to understand what leads to current dietary patterns.

“I want to look at the issue from an everyday life perspective to get a better sense of what is going on at the level of the everyday, as it unfolds” added Dr Fernandes.

“When you know this, you start understanding why certain things are more likely to happen, and certain foods are more likely to be eaten.”