The Importance of Providing Opportunities for Health Behaviors during the School Day

Abstract

Today, children are less active than previous generations leading to an increased prevalence of morbidity associated with physical inactivity. Globally, full-day preschool is rapidly becoming the norm. Thus, the amount of time that a child spends outside the home is an opportunity for schools and teachers to educate children about the importance of participating in physical activity and making healthy eating choices. One approach to comprehensively offer opportunities for physical activity and healthy eating is called Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child, which intertwines academic success and promotion of healthy behaviors. Particularly for adolescent children, multicomponent approaches that include both school and family or community involvement have the most significant potential to make meaningful differences in the rate of physical activity participation. For young children, teacher training, resources, and equipment are needed to achieve equity across programs and schools, because these are predictors of physical activity participation. Further, school policies, administrative support, modeling by teachers, and the use of cues and incentives can have a positive effect. The purpose of this paper is to describe the benefits of contemporary, evidence-based models for providing opportunities for health behaviors in school from early childhood to adolescence.