Development and evaluation of a novel approach to optimise schoolteacher food and nutrition-related health and wellbeing

<p dir="ltr">Schools are ideal settings for health promotion. However, the health promoting capacity of schools greatly depends on the buy-in and capability of over 74 million teachers globally whose health and wellbeing are contributing factors. Over, the past decade, research has increasingly attempted to define, measure and understand teacher wellbeing. Despite this, one of the most fundamental lifestyle factors, a healthy diet to support positive health and wellbeing, has not yet received the attention it deserves.</p><p dir="ltr">This thesis outlines the importance of including diet and contributing food and nutrition (FN) factors, such as teacher food agency in the measurement of teacher health and wellbeing. To this end, a new screening tool, the teacher food and nutrition-related health and wellbeing questionnaire (TFNQ), was developed and validated specifically for teachers. The TFNQ enables a systematic and evidence-based approach to collect data on teacher food, nutrition and wellbeing factors. Cross-sectional data collected with the TFNQ enabled exploratory analysis to uncover correlations of interest between the FN factors of food skills confidence and food agency with teacher diet quality, burnout and professional FN confidence. Food skills confidence demonstrated a</p><p dir="ltr">moderate positive correlation with teacher diet quality, particularly vegetable intake. Whereas food agency in the domains of work-life balance and food preparation, was negatively correlated with burnout. In contrast, food agency, in the domains of teacher self-efficacy in food preparation, was positively correlated with professional FN confidence, including being a positive FN role model.</p><p dir="ltr">Teacher wellbeing is multifaceted, yet the findings within this thesis highlight the association between FN factors such as food agency and food skills confidence and aspects of teacher health, wellbeing and professional FN competence. However, further research is needed to establish causal pathways. The evidence-based TFNQ developed within this thesis and findings from the correlation analysis provide a foundation for further research into the role of FN factors on teacher wellbeing. The TFNQ is an output of this PhD research that will be used to collect baseline and follow-up data in my postdoctoral research, which aims to develop an intervention to improve teacher food and nutrition-related health and wellbeing. It can also potentially be used by other researchers, as well as by Principals and other education-based program developers for their specific needs in understanding teacher food and nutrition-related health and wellbeing and how it changes over time.</p>