Primary schools are suitable settings for promoting healthy lifestyles to students, say researchers in the United Kingdom.

Over a 10-month period, students attending schools offering a healthy lifestyle program increased their level of moderate to vigorous physical activity by 9 minutes a day, report Dr. Trish Gorely and colleagues.

By contrast, students attending schools following standard practices showed a corresponding 10-minute decrease in physical activity, the investigators report in the online publication International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.

Gorely, at the Institute of Youth Sport and Exercise Sciences at Loughborough University, and colleagues followed physical activity levels and consumption of fruit and vegetable among 589 students who were 7 to 11 years old and attending one of eight primary schools.

Four of these schools followed standard practices (controls) and four adopted an intervention program that provided teaching resources on exercise and nutrition, activity planning, and a focus on “highlight events” such as one mile walks and runs.

“From the feedback we received, the highlight events appear critical and gave a real focus to everything else that was done,” Gorely told Reuters Health.

Moreover, everyone in the intervention schools, from the head teacher down, participated, Gorely said.

Teachers incorporated healthy lifestyle educational resources into their classes; pupils, parents, and teachers had access to an interactive website; and students received summer activity suggestions aimed at encouraging them to continue the physical and dietary recommendations when not in school.

The investigators noted no change in fruit and vegetable consumption during the 10-month study period.

However, in addition to significantly increasing daily time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity, the intervention students increased their steps by 316 per day, compared with just a 153 step increase among control students on average.

This amplified activity may have contributed to the slower increase in body fat, body mass, and waist circumference among the older students at the intervention schools.

Gorely suggested continued research to find ways to facilitate dietary changes through school-based interventions, as well as repeat investigations to assess the efficacy of a similar program in more ethnically diverse schools.

SOURCE: International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, January 2009