The school nutrition environment and its association with soft drink intakes in seven countries across Europe - the ENERGY project

The school is an important setting for promoting healthy eating especially at the transition from childhood to adolescence. This study contributes to the literature by describing practices within physical, political and sociocultural aspects of the school nutrition environment in seven countries across Europe based on questionnaires to the school management, and exploring their associations with soft drink consumption reported on questionnaires by 10-12 year olds. Several of the commonly self-reported practices could be supportive of a healthy diet (time to eat, access to water, restriction on marketing), but some practices were underutilized (i.e. discussion with stakeholders, healthy foods at events). Only a few associations of practices with the pupils׳ soft drink consumption were found.