School is an important living environment for young people. Considering its mission and the number of hours a child spends at school every day, it has a shared responsibility with parents for the acquisition of healthy lifestyle habits.
In addition to preventing chronic diseases, healthy lifestyle habits are important allies for the school system. They help students perform better academically and can be factors of motivation, belonging and academic perseverance. It is therefore important to maximize the integration of healthy lifestyle habits at school for the benefit of health and education.
For schools favourable to healthy eating.
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For schools promoting a physically active lifestyle.
To mark the 10-year anniversary of the Going the Healthy Route at School framework policy, Collectif Vital brought together two working committees. Their findings and recommendations can be found in the report titled The Healthy Route at School.
Summaries are also available:
The Going the Healthy Route School framework policy offers schools guidelines to promote healthy lifestyle habits. Although evaluations of this policy reveal positive impacts, its application poses several challenges for the communities, numerous inequalities exist between schools and certain practices need to be reviewed.
Collectif Vital recommends enshrining the Going the Healthy Route at School framework policy in the Education Act in order to ensure its application is equitable and to implement accountability mechanisms. Also, allocating financial and human resources is essential to support schools in achieving the guidelines set by the framework policy.
More solutions to promote healthy lifestyle habits at school are available in our latest policy brief!
Check out our policy brief
