The Brookline High School Food Justice Committee will host a public event about teen nutrition in Brookline on Thursday, May 10. The event will feature a talk led by Harvard nutritionist and epidemiologist Dr. Eric Rimm as well as a presentation by the BHS Food Justice Committee about a recent survey they conducted regarding nutritional choices among students at BHS.
The BHS Food Justice Committee is a group of 15 students that meet once a week to advocate for increased access to healthy food in the Brookline community. This includes learning where our food is sourced, understanding labor and agricultural practices, and examining the relationship between income and food purchasing power. Led by BHS social studies teacher Roger Grande, the club coordinates food drives for the Brookline Food Pantry, visits local restaurants and community gardens, and organizes educational events to encourage conversations about healthy food availability in Brookline.
Jackie Mundis, a senior at Brookline High School, is one of the student club leaders of the BHS Food Justice Committee. Mundis became interested in food justice through an internship at the Brookline Food Pantry where she was struck by the disparity in food choices within Brookline. Mundis says that “interacting with the Food Pantry clients and talking to families really made me realize the difficulties some people face in terms of access to healthy food.”
During a field trip last year, the Food Justice Committee participated in a seminar led by Rimm, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the director of several research initiatives that investigate the relationship between disease, food, and lifestyle choices like diet and exercise. As Rimm spoke with the students, Grande was inspired by the possibility of applying a scientific approach, like those outlined by Rimm, to gain insight into the nutritional choices of teens at Brookline High School.
After the field trip, the students and Rimm worked closely together to develop an online eight-question survey that focused on purchased beverage consumption within the student body at BHS. The aim was to use soda, energy drinks, and other sweetened beverages as a proxy for general nutritional options at the high school and within the greater community. The process and results were illuminating. In addition to receiving almost 600 responses to the survey, the club was fascinated by the process of designing the survey, particularly how to frame and word each question properly.
“My favorite question was ‘What is the most important factor when you consider buying a drink?’ because it really shows what teens are thinking when they make decisions about food and nutrition,” said Mundis. “Even though I am in a statistics class, I had never done anything like this before. We had to really think about wording and what we were asking.”
The BHS Food Justice Committee will present the results of the survey at the event on May 10 followed by a conversation with Rimm. The event is open to the public and will take place at Brookline High School.
Grande and Mundis are looking forward to the event, not only for the opportunity to share the latest work of the BHS Food Justice Committee but also to inspire future conversations about healthy food choices. “I hope this event will be more than an educational opportunity, but a chance for parents and adults in Brookline to see that we are really dedicated and passionate about this,” Mundis said. “I hope it will be powerful for them to see that teens care about these issues.”
Grande hopes the survey will inspire the students to continue to engage a scientific approach for further understanding food choices and nutritional access within their community. He has received a positive response from the students in the club, and he hopes that they continue to have intellectual conversations about research.
The presentation and discussion will take place on May 10 from 7-8:30 pm at Brookline High School. For more information, visit their website.