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What shapes our everyday food choices? And what can local governments actually do about it?

In this episode, we explore the food environment through a systems lens — from what’s on offer in the corner store to the broader policies and social norms that shape what people eat. Drawing on Tamika Wopereis’ work with municipalities in the Netherlands, we look at what it takes to understand and influence food environments at the local level.

We’ll unpack how tools like group model building and participatory photo walks help communities surface the hidden drivers of unhealthy (or unsustainable) food systems. And we ask: what does it really take to move from insights to action when no one actor controls the whole system?

Many of Tamika's papers are open access - check out some of these that we touch on in the episode:

• Systems Thinking for Local Food Environments (the group model building one)
• Food Cues in Outdoor Public Spaces (the PhotoVoice ones)
• Food Availability and Social Norms (the music festival one)

And these are some of the other resources that are mentioned in the episode:

• James Noble's paper on the Action Scales Model - also check out Episode 9 of the podcast for our conversation with James.
• Peter Hovmand's book on Community Based Systems Dynamics
• The Scriptapedia page with workshop processes for group model building.

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