School Health Program: challenges and possibilities for health promotion from the perspective of healthy eating

Abstract

The School Health Program (PSE) elects health promotion as a guideline for developing health actions at school. The  aim is to identify and analyze the program’s  strengths, opportunities,  weaknesses, and threats to implement  health-promoting actions that promote  healthy eating habits. This review, of qualitative approach, comprises 29 articles  of evaluation of the program published  between 2015 and 2021. By the SWOT  matrix, the analysis grouped the results into Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses, and Threats. Among the strengths, the proximity of the health and education  sectors and the integration between the  school, health unit, and family stood out; as  opportunities, the possibility of intersectoral planning for health promotion was  observed. The weaknesses refer to the  intersectoral disarticulation, the lack of  training, and the predominance of  biomedical actions. The threats found  demonstrate the centralization of power in  health and the schoolchildren’s approach to the health service without a broader  understanding of health promotion,  providing opportunities for medicalization.  It is concluded that it is possible to develop  intersectoral educational actions to  promote healthy eating in basic services involving schoolchildren and their families.  This practice should be prioritized in public  agendas in order to enable its daily practice  in services.