Nutrition Health Promotion in Schools in the UK: Learning from Food Standards Agency Funded Schools Research

Objective To test the feasibility and effectiveness of dietary change interventions in UK school-based settings. This overview draws out the main lessons that were learnt from these studies, for both practitioners and researchers. Design A review and analysis of the final reports from five studies commissioned by the Food Standards Agency. Setting Primary and secondary schools throughout the UK. Results For practitioners the studies highlighted: the importance of considering the future sustainability of interventions from the outset; the difficulty in successfully involving parents; the importance of actively engaging schools, and the support of committed individuals. They also bore out the contribution that a child-centred approach can have on increasing the acceptability of an intervention to children. For researchers, one of the most important issues that emerged was the need for an accepted research framework for public health interventions. In addition, there were several experimental design issues that flawed some of the studies. Assessing dietary intake in children proved challenging, and both guidance and the development of valid dietary assessment tools would be invaluable to future work in the area. This also applied to the measurement of nutrition knowledge and physical activity in children. Conclusion The five studies focused on different approaches and topics. However, all have the potential to be incorporated into the type of health promoting whole school approach which systematic reviews have indicated is the most effective way of changing behaviour. In England this is the approach adopted by schools achieving the healthy eating strand of the National Healthy Schools Standard (NHSS).