När människan åldras medför det en förändrad fysiologi och metabolism vilket ökar risken att drabbas av undernäring. Mat är mer än bara näringsintag, det är även ett sätt att umgås, socialisera och njuta. Måltiderna på ett äldreboende styrs av många hygienregler, näringsrekommendationer och policydokument som bland annat berör måltidsmiljö, måltidsordning samt matens innehåll av näringsämnen och energi.  Ett syfte med studien var att identifiera och beskriva vad som gynnar och hindrar ätandet hos äldre på ett äldreboende, ett ytterligare syfte var att studera, analysera och värdera måltidssituationen utifrån ett gastronomiskt perspektiv. I denna studie har vi beräknat näringsintag med hjälp av vägd kostregistrering under fem dygn hos åtta brukare på en enhet vid ett äldreboende och jämfört näringsintaget mot Livsmedelsverkets rekommendationer. Dessutom har vi undersökt och värderat måltidssituationen utifrån deltagande observation. Resultatet visar att det är problematiskt att leva upp till många delar av rekommendationerna och policyn då både tid och kunskap hittills saknats. Dessutom är det problematiskt att tillfredställa alla brukares individuella behov och önskemål. Brukarnas näringsintag var lägre än Livsmedelsverkets rekommendationer för de flesta näringsämnena. Antalet måltider och innehållet i framförallt mellanmålen motsvarade inte heller rekommendationerna. Dessutom var nattfastan för lång för de flesta av brukarna.

The aim of this thesis was to gain a deeper understanding of ready meal consumers and their demands regarding ready meal products in different situations. Data were gathered with one extensive postal survey and five focus group discussions. The aim of the survey was to investigate the beliefs held about ready meal consumers, identify typical ready meal situations, assess the aims of eating ready meals in these meal situations and, finally, to identify demands regarding ready meals in the purchase situation. The results of the survey showed that the image of the frequent ready meal consumer was a person alone and stressed. The ready meal-consuming respondents confirmed this image when they were in actual situations eating ready meals but not in general. Four common ready meal-eating situations were identified. Ready meals were eaten most frequently as lunch at work and dinner at home. The social context in these situations was found to differ and to affect the activities performed. Ready meals for lunch at work were commonly eaten with colleagues and then discussing was a normal activity. For dinner at home ready meals were usually eaten alone watching TV. The reasons why ready meals were chosen as meal solutions differed. Ready meals suitable for lunch at work should be time-saving and for dinner at home the main demand was that the products should be convenient in order to avoid cooking. Purchaser demands regarding ready meals were found to be influenced by the gender of the purchaser and the intended end-consumer. Female ready meal purchasers were more demanding buyers than males, especially concerning health aspects. The aim of the focus groups was to explore consumers' reasons regarding the choice of ready meals for dinner and to find out how ready meals suit their needs. Ready meals were not regarded as being very appropriate for dinner at home. The social setting of the dinner was one of the most important aspects affecting the choice of what to eat. For ready meals to be suitable for dinner use they should be dishes out of the ordinary with more taste. This thesis has demonstrated that the context of meals affects the entire ready meal choice process and that there is a need to broaden the research perspective beyond the meal. The entire food provisioning process needs to be taken into account. / Målet med denna avhandling var att generera en större kunskap om färdigmatskonsumenter och deras krav på färdigmat i olika situationer. För att kunna göra detta genomfördes en omfattande postal enkät och fem fokusgrupper. Syftet med enkäten var att kartlägga existerande attityder till färdigmatskonsumenter, identifiera typiska färdigmatssituationer, undersöka skälen till att äta färdigmat i dessa situationer samt slutligen identifiera vad som är avgörande för inköpet av färdigmat. Resultaten av enkäten visade att bilden av en färdigmatskonsument var en ensam och tidspressad person. Bilden bekräftades av de färdigmatsätande respondenterna men stämde enbart i färdigmatssituationen som sådan. Fyra typiska färdigmatssituationer identifierades. Mest frekvent åt respondenterna färdigmat till lunch på arbetet och till middag hemma. Den sociala kontexten skilde sig åt i dessa situationer och visade sig påverka vilka aktiviteter som pågick under måltiden. Färdigmat till lunch på arbetet åts vanligen med kollegor och då diskuterade man oftast. Vid middagen hemma åts färdigmat oftast ensam framför TV:n. Motiven till att välja färdigmat skilde sig åt i olika situationer. För en lunch på arbetet var det viktigast att färdigmaten var tidsbesparande men för en middag hemma var det främst bekvämlighetsaspekten, i form av att slippa laga mat, som avgjorde. I inköpssituationen visade det sig att olika aspekter var olika viktiga för inköpet av färdigmat beroende på inköparens kön och om inköparen var den som skulle äta färdigmaten. Generellt var kvinnliga färdigmatsinköpare mer krävande, i synnerhet gällande hälsorelaterade aspekter. När färdigmat köptes åt någon annan så var det signifikant viktigare att det var lätt att öppna förpackningen samt att maten skulle vara lik den mat som den personen brukade äta. Målet med fokusgrupperna var att utforska konsumenternas resonemang kring valet av färdigmat till middag och komma fram till hur färdigmat passade deras behov. Slutsatsen var att utformningen av en middag hemma var mycket beroende av den sociala kontexten, dvs. vem som skulle äta. Framför allt närvaron av barn var viktig för de val som gjordes inför middagen. Färdigmat ansågs inte passa särskilt bra till en social middag hemma. Ett färdigmatssortiment anpassat för middag föreslogs inbegripa mer speciella rätter med mer smak. Den här avhandlingen har visat på att måltidskontexten påverkar hela valprocessen av färdigmat och att det därför finns ett behov av att bredda forskningsperspektivet bortom maten i sig och även bortom måltiden. Hela processen, från planeringsstadiet till omhändertagandet av disk och avfall, måste tas i beaktande.

It is essential for service companies to understand how their customer service experiences are formed. This is especially important since service experiences are highly subjective and involve customers cognitively, emotionally and behaviorally. Although customer service experiences are a well recognised research topic in both, culinary arts and service research, dynamic interactions, activities and the customers’ active involvement have so far gained little attention. As a consequence the approach in previous research paints a rather static picture of customer service experiences. By introducing the principles of service dominant logic a first person view and the understanding of drivers of customer service experiences could be facilitated. The overall aim of the thesis is to extend and deepen the understandin of drivers of favourable and unfavourable customer service experiences.The context selected is the restaurant context. The overall aim is reflected in four intermediate aims. Two separate studies were conducted. First a two-stage questionnaire based study, describing the phone reservation encounter compared to dining satisfaction; second a critical incident technique study including 195 short narratives of customers’ favourable and unfavourable service experiences at restaurants. Interview data were analysed according to constant comparative analysis principles.The main empirical contributions of this thesis are the move from static descriptions of service to examining dynamic drivers of favourable and unfavourable customers’ service experiences, and especially the analysis of social interactions as a driver of service experiences and the categorisation of drivers. Theoretically the thesis introduces the experience driver constellation, reflecting the dynamic process of co-creation in specific situations,when favourable and unfavourable customer service experiences are formed. Suggestions are made to develop the Five Aspects Meal Model and the Experience Room Framework through the addition of actors, the exterior environment and organisational routines to the models.

Running a restaurant as a course in university implies several complicated conditions, some of these conditions include teamwork and students agreeing with each other, and this tends to become problematic when students take positions in the educational restaurant. This thesis aims to clarify such positions by using Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field and cultural capital. It further aims to illustrate how the interplay between past and present causes practices in the context of an educational restaurant. The methodology used to investigate interactions during restaurant services was participant observation – and to elucidate the students’ backgrounds, qualitative interviews were conducted. The collected material was analyzed by using thematic analysis and the results suggest that these positions induce control, fragmentation and subordination. These characteristics in turn tend to occur because of habitus, which differs from student to student because of their differing social backgrounds.

The purpose of this doctorate thesis is to investigate the historical discursive construction of swedishness and foreignness in the Swedish culinary field, primarily during the period of 1900-1970, and to relate the changes in the articulation of these concepts to the overarching ideological shifts during this time-period. To achieve this objective a conceptual apparatus inspired by cultural studies, discourse analysis and rhetorical analysis is employed upon the primary material, which consists of Swedish- and foreign-signified cookbooks published in Sweden during the period of 1600-1970. It is further argued that communities of consumption, such as nationalized culinary cultures, are discursive constructions and that actors attempt to write individuals into these communities through the articulation of nationalized subject positions. In the thesis it is thus investigated how, when and perhaps why certain actors on a field attempt to discursively construct such communities of consumption during a certain era. The chapters 2-5 of the thesis contain analyses of the historical construction of foreignness on the Swedish cultural field. Here various trends are traced in the construction of individual foreign cuisines, both in relation to each other and to the concept of culinary swedishness. An analysis is also made of the varied rhetoric that is used to promote foreign-signified cooking to the Swedish public during the examined time-period. It is concluded that the variations in rhetoric seem to covariate with larger ideological shifts in Swedish society. Chapters 6 and 7 specifically examine the construction of swedishness in the culinary field by focusing on the construction of national culinary icons such as the Smörgåsbord and Husmanskost and also on the evolution of the ideas of a distinct Swedish palate and a Swedish national cuisine. As a result of this investigation the perhaps surprisingly late codification of a Swedish national cuisine during the 1960’s is noted. It is further argued that this development coincides with a shift in the popular mood, where “the Swedish way of life” increasingly comes to be seen as threatened by external forces such as foreign influences and modernity, why certain actors on the culinary field express a necessity for the codification of what is perceived of as the “true Swedish cuisine”. A paradoxical result of this urge for preservation is the construction of new cultural phenomena dressed in a traditionalist and nationalist rhetoric that anchors them in a distant past.

The purpose of this study is to examine what pupils in the ninth grade eats for lunch and also whether there is any connection between their lunch habits and perceived ability to concentrate and fatigue. A further aim was to study pupils' experience of dining environment in schools.The study is based on a quantitative method with questionnaires. The study was implemented on four schools in elementary school in themunicipalityofKristianstadand Tanum. Our results demonstrate, in accordance with several previous studies conducted in the same age group, that it is about half of the pupils who eats school lunch every day and that the majority are eating school lunch 3-5 days a week. Furthermore, our study shows that the pupils who rarely eat vegetables in school feel tired and distracted to a greater extent than the group of pupils who eat vegetables almost daily. Our result also shows that the group of pupils who eat the main course 3-5 days a week feel both tired and distracted to a greater extent than the group of students who eat the main course more rarely. In accordance with previous studies our study shows that differences exist between boys and girls regarding food that is eaten instead of school lunch. Food containing empty calories is the most popular kind, it causes glucose levels to get out of balance which makes students tired and distracted.The result of our study shows that most pupils claim that they often feel tired and distracted during the school day. Hunger affects the individual's emotions, motivation and cognition (Lennernäs, 2011), which can be linked to the fact that only 6 % of pupils feel that they are getting satisfied every day after eating the school lunch. There are also many pupils who choose not to eat anything else those days they choose to skip the school lunch. Nevertheless, the majority of pupils are still happy with the environment in the school dining room and it is barely half the pupils who want bigger influence on what is served for school lunch.

Bakgrund: Kostvanorna hos den allmänna befolkningen, i synnerhet bland barn och ungdomar, är bristfällig. De svenska näringsrekommendationerna följs inte och dåliga kost- och motionsvanor har ett tydligt samband med flera av dagens folksjukdomar. Undersökningar visar att ett sätt att minska de kostrelaterade folkhälsosjukdomarna skulle kunna vara att förbättra ungdomars kostvanor. Idag finns det inga nationella kostkurser på gymnasiet och dessutom kommer möjligheten att erbjuda lokala kursalternativ i kost och hälsa att försvinna när den nya gymnasieskolan införs 2011. Syfte:Syftet med studien var att undersöka gymnasieelevers syn på sina kostvanor samt vad de anser om undervisningens betydelse för att utveckla sunda kostvanor. Metod och deltagare: Semi-strukturerade intervjuer användes som metod och sex kvinnliga elever från fem olika gymnasieprogram inkluderades, varav fyra hade läst en lokal kostkurs på gymnasiet. Resultat: Eleverna beskrev sina kostvanor som "ganska bra", "varken bra eller dåliga – mittemellan" eller "mindre bra. Elevernas beskrivning av sina kostvanor visade att några elever hade riktigt bra kostvanor medan andra både åt mindre hälsosam mat och hade en betydligt sämre måltidsrytm. Tallriksmodellen var ett känt begrepp för de flesta intervjuade och det fanns ambitioner hos majoriteten att följa den. Eleverna redovisade ett högre intag av godis och/eller läsk än önskvärt. Gymnasieeleverna upplevde att undervisning i kost och hälsa har betydelse för att utveckla sunda kostvanor. Slutsats: Gymnasieeleverna var bra på att beskriva sina kostvanor men de faktiska kostvanorna kunde varit bättre. Eleverna som idrottade regelbundet samt eleverna som hade aktualiserat sina kostkunskaper på gymnasiet kunde lättare peka på vad som var mindre bra i sina kostvanor. De flesta eleverna ansåg att utbildning i kostfrågor behövdes på gymnasiet. 

With obesity in adolescents becoming a major health problem in the United States, there has been an expansion in the use of nutritional education programs as intervention. Effective nutrition education can decrease the incidence of obesity and other diet-related chronic diseases, type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension. This dissertation in practice proposes to design a nutrition education program, integrating farm and culinary activities into a nutrition education curriculum. The program is designed as a stand-alone program, but for this practice, implementation integrates the nutrition education program into the Film @ 6 after-school program – a STEM-focused program designed to assist sixth graders in their first year of middle school – at Southeast Middle School in Salisbury, Rowan County, North Carolina (NC). This experiential nutrition education program will provide instruction and activities in order to increase nutritional knowledge, improve culinary techniques, and increase consumption of fruits, vegetables, and minimally processed foods of sixth grade students as a means to address the overweight and obesity risks of middle school children. Children and adolescents are considered the priority population for intervention strategies because 70% of obese adolescents become obese adults and it is difficult to reduce excessive weight once established (Dehghan, Akhtar-Danesh, & Merchant, 2005).