ISSC 2017 – Hong Kong: Transforming The Future Today.

Diet and Food Waste of Italian High School Students: How to Improve Our Water Footprint

The Water Footprint (WF) measures the amount of water used to produce goods and services we use. Among the factors that contribute to the WF of a nation, a key role is played by the production and the consumption of food. The group designed a survey on dietary habits which was distributed to all 15-year-old pupils in the school and measured the amount of food eaten and wasted in the school cafeteria. To calculate the average WF, the mass of each portion was estimated and multiplied by the specific WF; in order to provide a viable alternative, the WF of the Mediterranean diet was calculated and compared to the one determined by the aforementioned methods. The conclusions of the research showed that the WF of italian teenagers’ diet could be significantly improved by drastically reducing the consumption of industrial snacks, in favour of more traditional dietary habits such as those represented by the Mediterranean diet, and by removing the extra intake of food; this would also allow to diminish (ideally, to eliminate) the WF due to wastes at lunchtime.

Poster

Oltre alla presentazione del progetto principale per l'edizione 2017 dell'ISSC è stata offerta alle delegazioni la possibilità di presentare un poster: gli studenti del Foscarini hanno sintetizzato i risultati ottenuti in parte della ricerca nel seguente prodotto.

Poster abstract

Given the fact that during the breaks the students of our school have mainly (if not exclusively) access to food stored in vending machines, the amount of industrial snacks consumed daily (on average) is very relevant. Therefore we chose to estimate the WF of such products, focussing in particular on the impact of chocolate. We designed a survey on dietary habits and distributed it to all 15-year-old pupils in our school, including a specific section in which it was required to evaluate ones’ consumption of industrial snacks (categorized according to chocolate content). The survey revealed that students on average consume 5 to 6 portions of snacks per week: as a result the average amount of water associated with these products is around 300 L/day per capita.