Addressing social inequities has been recognized as foundational to transforming food systems. Activists and scholars have critiqued food movements as lacking an orientation towards addressing issues of social justice. To address issues of inequity, sustainable food systems education (SFSE) programs will have to increase students’ equity-related capabilities. Our first objective in this paper is to determine the extent to which SFSE programs in the USA and Canada address equity. We identified 108 programs and reviewed their public facing documents for an explicit focus on equity. We found that roughly 80% of universities with SFSE programs do not provide evidence that they explicitly include equity in their curricula. Our second objective is to propose an equity competency model based on literature from multiple fields and perspectives. This entails dimensions related to knowledge of self; knowledge of others and one’s interactions with them; knowledge of systems of oppression and inequities; and the drive to embrace and create strategies and tactics for dismantling racism and other forms of inequity. Integrating our equity competency model into SFSE curricula can support the development of future professionals capable of dismantling inequity in the food system. We understand that to integrate an equity competency in our curricula will require commitment to build will and skill not only of our students, but our faculty, and entire university communities.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, significantly fewer of New York City’s (NYC’s) 1.1 million public school children participated in emergency grab-and-go meals—heightening the risk of inadequate nutrition security for many of NYC’s most vulnerable residents. This study sought to examine student families’ facilitators and barriers to participation in the grab-and-go meal service and their experiences with pandemic-electronic benefit transfer (P-EBT) funds, a cash benefit distributed when schools were closed. We recruited 126 parents of children in NYC public schools who had participated in the grab-and-go service. Using opened-ended questions, we interviewed 101 parents in 25 1-h online focus groups. We identified four main themes which broadly impacted school meal participation: communication, logistics, meal appeal, and personal circumstances. Key facilitating subthemes included clear communication, ease of accessing sites, and high variety. Key sub-themes negatively impacting participation included limited communication and low meal variety. Accurate, timely communication; easily accessible distribution locations; and convenient distribution times could have increased participation and satisfaction. For P-EBT, parents welcomed the funds and used them readily, but some experienced difficulties obtaining payments. The simultaneous inclusion of community-based research in the evaluation of emergency feeding programs could improve future outcomes for school meal participation and electronic benefits.

Objective. Sample size and statistical power calculation should consider clustering effects when schools are the unit of randomization in intervention studies. The objective of the current study was to investigate how student outcomes are clustered within schools in an obesity prevention trial. Method. Baseline data from the Food, Health & Choices project were used. Participants were 9- to 13-year-old students enrolled in 20 New York City public schools (n = 1,387). Body mass index (BMI) was calculated based on measures of height and weight, and body fat percentage was measured with a Tanita® body composition analyzer (Model SC-331s). Energy balance–related behaviors were self-reported with a frequency questionnaire. To examine the cluster effects, intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were calculated as school variance over total variance for outcome variables. School-level covariates, percentage students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, percentage Black or Hispanic, and English language learners were added in the model to examine ICC changes. Results. The ICCs for obesity indicators are: .026 for BMI-percentile, .031 for BMI z-score, .035 for percentage of overweight students, .037 for body fat percentage, and .041 for absolute BMI. The ICC range for the six energy balance–related behaviors are .008 to .044 for fruit and vegetables, .013 to .055 for physical activity, .031 to .052 for recreational screen time, .013 to .091 for sweetened beverages, .033 to .121 for processed packaged snacks, and .020 to .083 for fast food. When school-level covariates were included in the model, ICC changes varied from −95% to 85%. Conclusions. This is the first study reporting ICCs for obesity-related anthropometric and behavioral outcomes among New York City public schools. The results of the study may aid sample size estimation for future school-based cluster randomized controlled trials in similar urban setting and population. Additionally, identifying school-level covariates that can reduce cluster effects is important when analyzing data.