Influence of social library items on body image and "cellular agriculture"

Vanessa Rogotzki, Jennifer Hartung, Annika Röthele and Daniel Steinhausen have received the ELVe Young Talent Award 2024 for their outstanding academic, highly topical and practice-relevant theses. The Centre for Nutrition, Food and Sustainable Supply Systems (ELVe) recognises special social services: benefits of graduates. At the same time, the award aims to provide an insight into the variety of nutrition-related topics that are researched at Fulda University of Applied Sciences. This year, the theses provided important and extremely related to practice in the fields of social media, cellular agriculture, consumer safety and community catering.

"All of the employees' work is methodologically very good, was assessed with a grade of at least 1.3 and contributes to current issues with its findings. The graduates are making important contributions to major challenges and the future of our food systems - at an individual and societal level," said Professor Dr Stephanie Hagspihl, member of the ELVe Centre Management.

Social media and eating behaviour
In the "Nutrition" category, the prize went to Vanessa Rogotzki (23) from the Public Health Nutrition study programme. In her Master's thesis, she investigated how body and food-related content on social library items influences the body image and eating behaviour of young adults in Germany. According to her findings, in order to better understand the correlations, not only the usage times, but also the effects of different content should be analysed in more detail. For example, their survey provided evidence that men and women react differently to healthy recipes, photos in sporty poses and the positive depiction of imperfect bodies.

Life cycle assessment of cellular agriculture
The prize was awarded twice in the "Food" category. Daniel Steinhausen (23) from the Bachelor's programme in Food Technology investigated the life cycle assessment of coffee, carrots and stevia from cellular production. He showed that the new technology, which allows plant-based foods to be produced in a bioreactor instead of in the field, is not necessarily the better option from an ecological point of view. There are only advantages for the cultivation of coffee.

Safe food processing
Annika Röthele (23) from the Bachelor's programme Nutritional, Food and Consumer Sciences provided new findings relevant to consumer protection for safe food processing. She analysed the glycoalkaloid content in sprouting raw and prepared table potatoes and found that its concentration cannot be estimated by the sprout length and varies greatly depending on the variety. Glycoalkaloids such as solanine are harmful to health if consumed in large quantities. The highest concentrations were found in the peel and sprouts.

Climate-friendly communal catering
Jennifer Hartung (36) from the Nutritional, Food and Consumer Sciences study programme was the winner in the "Sustainable supply systems" category. In her Bachelor's thesis, she compared four different food production systems in communal catering with the aim of identifying the most climate-friendly option. In doing so, she provided the catering industry with a concrete decision-making aid.

Creative consumer communication
The ELVe Centre also traditionally honours the best project work by students with a prize. Stefanie Baumgart (28), Jana Böhmert (25), Luisa Kulla (23) and Sophie Ritter (25) from the Master's programme in Public Health Nutrition received the award. They developed an online escape room as part of Fulda University of Applied Sciences' sustainability strategy to playfully raise awareness of food waste. After all, far too much food still ends up in the bin in Germany. The project group also showed what creative and cost-effective consumer communication can look like.

Further information on the ELVe Young Talent Award