Healthy Eating Education: the role of School Lunch in Italy in the late 1950s

In Italy, in June 1955 an agreement was signed with the USA, according to which part of the American food surplus would find a suitable form of use in our Country. In the following three years, large quantities of food from overseas were allocated by the International Aid Administration (IAA) to poor children assisted in the school canteens. The paper intends to present how the IAA plan took shape in the late 1950s, studying the educational material used in the Italian primary schools. In addition to reporting on the national situation, an in-depth analysis will be conducted on the experience of the school canteens in Piacenza, a city in northern Italy. The analysis of unpublished document from the City Archive, including school notebooks, filmstrips, brochures and posters, will bring to light how the IAA initiatives were realized at a local level, and, above all, what was the reaction of students and teachers.