Using Social Movements to Support Culture Change – the Case of Health Promoting Schools

Developmental evaluation is a very useful tool in helping organizations to understand complex social issues. It was used to evaluate and inform the approach for the Health Promoting Schools movement across Canada.

What is Health Promoting Schools?

Obesity and overweight rates among children and youth are a major public health concern today. Schools are ideally placed to be organizations that promote healthy lifestyles for children and youth. Kids attend school 5 days a week, 7 hours a day, for 10 months a year from the time they are 4 years old until they reach the age of 17 or 18. All this time covers an extremely important developmental period in their lives. Yet most schools view health promotion as something that only happens in Phys Ed or Health class – perhaps a couple of hours a week at most.