Evaluation of a health and nutrition education program in primary school children of Crete over a three-year period

Background. No national policy for health education in schools exists to da te in Greece. The first attempt to apply a school-based health education in tervention program was launched in 1992 on all 4,171 pupils registered in t he first grade in two counties of Crete. The 1,510 pupils registered in a t hird county served as controls. Methods. The school-based intervention and the seminars organized for paren ts were primarily aimed at improving children's diet, fitness, and physical activity. Pupils in the first grade in a representative sample of 40 schoo ls were examined prior to the intervention program on a variety of health k nowledge, dietary, physical activity, fitness, anthropometric, and biochemi cal indices. The same measurements were taken after 3 years of the program on 288 intervention group and 183 control group pupils. Results. Positive serum lipid level changes occurred to a greater extent in the intervention group than the control group. BMI increased less in the i ntervention group than for controls. The increase in health knowledge and p hysical activity and fitness levels occurred to a higher extent in the inte rvention group compared to controls. Conclusions. The short-term changes observed in the present study are marke dly encouraging and indicate great potential for progressive improvement. C ontinuation and expansion of such a program may prove to be beneficial in i nitiating long-term changes. (C) 1999 American Health Foundation and Academ ic Press.