Abstract
Information regarding school-based health-promoting interventions’ potential effects in the home environment is scarce. Gaining more insight into this is vital to optimise interventions’ potential. The Healthy Primary School of the Future (HPSF) is a Dutch initiative aiming to improve children’s health and well-being by providing daily physical activity sessions and healthy school lunches. This qualitative study examines if and how HPSF influenced children’s and parents’ physical activity and dietary behaviours at home. In 2018–2019, 27 semi-structured interviews were conducted with parents from two HPSFs. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, and data were coded and interpreted through thematic analysis. HPSF resulted in various behavioural changes at home, initiated by both children and parents. Parents reported improvements in healthy behaviours, as well as compensatory, unhealthy behaviours. Reasons for behavioural change included increased awareness, perceived support to adopt healthy behaviours, and children asking for the same healthy products at home. Barriers to change included no perceived necessity for change, lack of HPSF-related information provision, and time and financial constraints. Both child-to-adult intergenerational learning and parent-initiated changes play an important role in the transfer of health behaviours from school to home and are therefore key mechanisms to maximise school-based health-promoting interventions’ impact.
Highlights
One interview was excluded because after the interview it became clear that the participant was a pedagogical staff member at one of the full Healthy Primary Schools of the Future (HPSFs) (Figure 1)
Participants were predominantly positive about the HPSF concept
In 21 of the 27 (77.8%) interviews, participants indicated they voted in favour of HPSF implementation at the start of the project or took it into account when choosing a primary school for their children (Table 1)
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Childhood is an important period in life for the development of lifestyle habits (e.g., physical activity (PA) and dietary habits), many of which are known to persist throughout adult life [1]. Unhealthy habits during childhood increase the risk of developing overweight and obesity, which has immediate negative consequences for children’s physical, mental and social health. Childhood overweight and obesity is often maintained during adult life and increases the risk of non-communicable diseases such as coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes [2]. The formation of healthy lifestyle habits early in life is vital to obtain long-lasting health benefits
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