Peer-reviewed article
Children Learn, Children Do! Results of the “Planning Health in School”, a Behavioural Change Programme
Margarida Vieira, Graça Simões de Carvalho ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001The 'Planning Health in School' programme is a behavioural change intervention designed to improve children's eating habits, particularly fruit and vegetable intake. The programme was tested with 240 children aged 10-12 in a school in Porto, Portugal, over one school year using repeated food records. Children showed significant increases in vegetable soup, milk products and fruit consumption, and decreases in high-energy dense foods and soft drinks, though some targeted foods like water and plain vegetables showed no improvement.
Key points
- Significant increase in vegetable soup consumption (p = 0.003)
- Significant increase in fruit consumption (p = 0.008)
- Significant decrease in high-energy dense food consumption (p = 0.048)
- Significant decrease in soft drink consumption (p = 0.042)
- No positive effects observed on fried food, water, vegetables and bread consumption
Limitations
The study used a single school in suburban Porto with no comparison group, limiting generalisability to other settings or populations. The document does not provide information on long-term sustainability of behaviour change or on potential socioeconomic or demographic factors that may influence programme effectiveness.
Abstract
The ‘Planning Health in School’ programme (PHS-pro) is a behavioural change intervention to assess and improve the eating habits of children, particularly the intake of fruit and vegetables, and to guide them towards healthy choices. The programme and its educational components are based on the Transtheoretical Model of stages of change to integrate nutritional literacy and build up problem-solving and decision-making skills. Children (n = 240, ages 10–12) of one large suburban school in Porto’s metropolitan area (Portugal) were evaluated throughout PHS-pro implementation during one school year in a repeated time–series design. Children’s outcome evaluations were conducted through seven 3-day food records for nine eating behaviour, documented after each learning module and through participatory activities which analysed attitudes, preferences and expectations. Changes were observed in children’s eating behaviour, supported by changes in motivation as perceived in their attitudes and expectations. Significant changes were found in a higher consumption of vegetable soup (p = 0.003), milk products (p = 0.024), and fruit (p = 0.008), while the consumption of high-energy dense food (p = 0.048) and soft drinks (p = 0.042) significantly decreased. No positive effects on fried food, water, vegetables and bread consumption were found. The PHS-pro intervention proved to be effective in developing healthy eating behaviour in young people.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Planning Health in School (PHS-pro) - a behavioural change programme based on the Transtheoretical Model that integrates nutritional literacy and builds problem-solving and decision-making skills through educational modules and participatory activities
- Population
- 240 children aged 10-12 in a suburban school in Porto metropolitan area, Portugal
Key finding
Vegetable soup consumption increased significantly (p = 0.003)