New Data on Nutrition and Physical Activity Education in Public Secondary Schools
According to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), nearly all secondary schools in 25 states and 10 urban school districts provided education to students on nutrition and physical activty topics through required health education courses and taught key related topics. The data for this report was obtained through CDC's analysis of the 2004 School Health Profiles for public secondary schools serving students in grades 6-12. Since 1994, the School Health Profiles survey has been conducted once every two years by state and local education and health agencies to assess school health programs.
This School Health Profiles analysis determined the percentage of lead health education teachers who received professional development on nutrition and physical activity and assessed the extent to which nutrition and physical activity topics were being taught in school health education. The findings indicate that the percentage of schools in which the lead health education received staff development on nutrition and dietary behavior during the two years preceding the survey ranged from 21.4% to 48.1% among states and from 25.8% to 59.5% among school districts; for staff development on physical activity and fitness, percentages ranged from 29.5% to 61.6% among states and 16.9% to 75.8% among school districts. Approximately one half to three fourths of schools in the participating states and school districts taught all 15 nutrition and dietary behavior topics listed in the School Health Profiles questionnaire in a required health education course, and approximately one third to two thirds taught all 12 physical activity and fitness topics. Percentages for "keeping food safe to eat" were lower than percentages for other nutrition-related topics, and percentages for "developing an individualized physical activity plan" and "monitoring progress toward reaching goals" were lower than percentages for other physical activity-related topics.
Studies have shown that teachers who receive staff development are more likely to cover a broader range of topics and use evidence-based teaching methods that improve student health behaviors. Since this analysis indicated that fewer than half of lead health education teachers has received recent staff development on nutrition and physical activity, an important implication for states and school districts is to increase the availability of staff development on these topics for health education teachers.
Teachers, staff members, parents, students, and community members can also use the School Health Index, a self-assessment and planning tool that schools can use to improve their health and safety policies and programs, to assess whether their school curricula contain elements of effective health education on nutrition and physical activity topics and to create a plan to improve curricula and other components of their school health programs.
It is important to note three limitations of the analysis in that the data 1) include only public secondary schools and do not reflect practices at private schools; 2) were self-reported by lead health education teachers and are therefore subject to recall and other biases being that also the responses were not verfied by other sources nor may lead health education teachers be aware of classroom practices of all individual health education teachers in the school; and 3) are not an assessment of the effectiveness or quality of health education instruction.
For more information on this MMWR report, please contact:
mmwrq@cdc.gov
Sources: MMWR