How Can Schools Contribute Towards A Great Nutrition Program?

Public Health Educators Influence Kids to Start Eating Healthier Meals

​Children spend most of their time in school apart from home. In recent times, many schools have started offering breakfast and lunch to children to fulfill their dietary and health requirements as a child’s performance in school depends on his/her energy and fitness levels which are provided by the food they eat.

Schools play a critical role in monitoring and improving the dietary and physical activity behaviors of children and adolescents. Schools have the potential to nurture healthy children by creating environments that encourage healthy eating practices, promote performing physical activities daily and teach children about health.

Schools strive to:

• Curb risk factors such as alcohol and tobacco use or bullying.
• Promote healthy habits such as exercise and healthy eating.
• Minimize health problems such as obesity, asthma and infectious diseases by dealing with them in the best possible way.
  
  

Schools can aim to provide their students with the best possible health ideologies in the following ways:

1. Use a coordinated approach to develop, implement and evaluate healthy eating and physical activity policies and practices.
2. Build the environment at school such that it supports healthy eating and exercise.
3. Try to provide a nutritious school meal program and also ensure that kids eat only healthy food and beverages outside the school meal program.
4. Bring in a qualified physical instructor to train kids in comprehensive physical activity programs with quality physical education as the milestone.
5. Make health education a compulsive part of the school curriculum so that it provides the students with knowledge, attitude, skills and experience needed for eating a healthy meal lifelong.
6. Include families during discussions on a healthy lifestyle as children eat what adults eat. Parents are the first role model for any kid and the kid imitates and follows what his/her parents do. Read more on parents being the perfect model to their children at www.firsteatright.com.

Bringing in school-based healthy eating and physical activity are sure to contribute towards the improvement of the kids’ health. By doing this, schools can ensure that every child has equal opportunity to reap educational benefits and pursue a lifetime of good health.