engleski

Nutrition friendly schools initiative in Croatia

Improving the nutritional status of school-age children is an effective investment for the future generation. The WHO Nutrition-Friendly Schools Initiative (NFSI) provides a framework for implementing integrated intervention programmes to improve the health and nutritional status of school-age children and adolescents, targeted in the school settings. The aims of NFSI are based on fulfiling five key points: School nutrition policy, awareness and capacity building of the school community, nutrition and health promoting curriculum, supportive school environment, school nutrition and health services Methods and sample: NFSI pilot project in Croatia took place in eight schools: 3 rural, 2 urban 3 semi-urban during period 2006-2008. Two workshops were organised to introduce participants with NFSI in details and to motivate them for their roles in providing activities. One workshop was for school headmasters and school doctors, and another one for biology teachers, physical activity teachers and school cooks. Results: All schools have own kitchens, equipt for preparing school meals and dining rooms for serving meals. Most of schools organized interesting nutrition and physical activity events and fairs such as “Day of bread”, “Day of apples”, “Fruit park”, “Healthy breakfast”, “Move for health day“.Two rural schools promoted cooking of traditional foods and published a booklet with the recipes. Four schools collaborated with local farms and food industry, so the pupils went there for excursions. One school in Zagreb started with an extra hours of physical activity for a group of 15 overweight pupils. Conclusions: Schools were highly motivated and managed to sucesfuly implement NFSI by including school staff, school doctors, children, parents and local community, especially through extra activities such as school gardens, nutrition and physical activity promotion and improvement of school meals. So, NFSI as an example of good practice of a whole school approach to healthy eating and healthy life style of children and adolescents could be included in national nutrition policy.

nutrition friendly school; Croatia

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