A Healthy School Start
The Healthy School Start is a universal health promotion and prevention program based on Social Cognitive Theory. It is fully integrated in the school context, in line with the school law, the curriculum and the guideline for school health care.
The program runs over one academic school year in pre-school class or grade 1 and comprises four core components: 1) A health information brochure to parents focusing on positive parenting practices in relation to diet, physical activity, screen time, and sleep; 2) person-centered motivational interviewing (MI) performed by trained school nurses with parents focusing on diet, physical activity, screen time, and sleep; 3) nine classroom activities for the children focusing on health and health-related behaviors, performed by teachers with home assignments to be completed together with parents; and 4) a validated self-test for parents for risk of type 2 diabetes with automatic feedback.
The programme has been evaluated in three cluster-randomised controlled trials from 2011-2020.
Funding
The latest trial of the programme was rewarded funding from the Swedish Research Council FORTE during 2017-2020.
Publications
- A Healthy School Start Plus for prevention of childhood overweight and obesity in disadvantaged areas through parental support in the school setting - study protocol for a parallel group cluster randomised trial.
Elinder LS, Patterson E, Nyberg G, Norman Å
BMC Public Health 2018 Apr;18(1):459 - Parental strategies for influencing the diet of their children - A qualitative study from disadvantaged areas.
Norman Å, Nyberg G, Elinder LS, Berlin A, Appetite 2018 Jun;125():502-511 - Parental support in promoting children's health behaviours and preventing overweight and obesity - a long-term follow-up of the cluster-randomised healthy school start study II trial.
Norman Å, Zeebari Z, Nyberg G, Elinder LS, BMC Pediatr 2019 Apr;19(1):104 - Children's experiences of participating in a school-based health promotion parental support programme - a qualitative study. Malek ME, Nyberg G, Elinder LS, Patterson E, Norman Å, BMC Pediatr 2021 May;21(1):228
- Bergström B, Sundblom E, Elinder LS, Norman Å, Nyberg G. Managing implementation of a parental support programme for obesity prevention in the school context – The importance of creating commitment in an overburdended work situation, a qualitative study. The Journal of Primary Prevention 2020;41:191–209
- Malek ME, Andermo S, Nyberg G, Elinder LS, Patterson E, Norman Å. Parents' experiences of participating in the Healthy School Start Plus programme – a qualitative study. BMC Public Health 23, 646 (2023).
- Morris M, Norman Å, Elinder LS, Patterson E, Warnqvist A, Raposo S, Annerstedt KS. Validation of the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire among parents of five- to seven-year-old children in Sweden. Front. Psychol. Sec. Eating Behavior Volume 14 – 2023.
- Patterson E, Nyberg G, Norman Å, Elinder LS. Universal Healthy School Start intervention reduced the body mass index of young children with obesity. Acta Paediatrica 2024;00:1–7. DOI: 10.1111/apa.17164
- Norman Å, Etminan Malek M, Patterson E, Nyberg G, Elinder LS. Effects of universal school-based parental support for children's healthy diet and physical activity - The Healthy School Start Plus cluster-randomised controlled trial. Prevention Science 2024.