The Breakfast Club – Hospitable meal practices as rehabilitation strategies and practices in nursing homes

This paper presents the outline of a three-year research project funded by Innovation Fund Denmark. It is based on a growing aging population and a need for new welfare solutions. The project is ontologically grounded in a dynamic hospitality thinking, where residents and health care professionals in nursing homes co-create meals through shifting host and guest interactions (1), in order to increase residents’ physical functionality and quality of life (2). The involvement of residents is part of legislated municipality rehabilitation strategies. The project is designed as a complex intervention study divided in four phases. A breakfast club is established as a learning space for dynamic hospitality practices in a Danish nursing home. Weekly, a club with 4-5 residents (16 residents altogether) is organized during a period of nine months. Residents become alternately hosts and guests and prepare breakfast together. Secondly, experiences from the club will be implemented as an everyday meal activity in the nursing home. Finally, educational activities targeting health care professionals in general will be initiated. Impact measurements such as food related functionality and quality of life will be measured involving 30-40 residents. Observations and several semi-structured interviews in combination with collaborative visual methods will be conducted with 16 residents and 8-10 health care professionals. A meal practice based on dynamic hospitality thinking might influence residents’ quality of life. However, dynamic hospitality demands managerial support in order to succeed. Dynamic hospitality meal practices have the potential to become a new welfare solution and improve residents’ quality of life.”