Hacia una escuela saludable: una experiencia de integración de los agentes educativos en torno a la calidad de vida

Abstract

An evaluation research study was conducted in four school communities who have been implementing the Healthy Schools Strategy as an operations research project, with collaboration of the Public Health and Social Outreach Area of the School of Medicine at Universidad de La Sabana. A conceptual framework was developed, based on WHO´s(1) criteria for the creation of Health Promoting Schools, in order to implement the initiative. After structuring five thematic lines (Safe and secure environment, Health services, Health education, Health promotion policies and Community participation) school actors (children, professors, parents and school authorities and local institutions) are responsible for the thematic lines development. Thematic lines are developed by the implementation of organized projects (Example: Nutrition Project), and each project follows a series of six action lines in itself. Implementing the strategy should lead to the appropriation of knowledge and change of behaviors, which positively influence the health status of the school community as well as their general functional performance. The previous argument is evaluated in the four schools, by looking into the way by which they build their body of knowledge around de concept of "healthy nutrition". An evaluation instrument was built to qualitatively define the degree in which they handle nutritional knowledge in four categories (MANI): Masters, Apprentices, Novice and Ingenuous, and in four different dimensions: Knowledge, Method, Practice and Communication. From the analysis of directed interviews the degree of comprehension of each school around "healthy nutrition" is evaluated. Observation of the results allows suggesting that: the construction of knowledge from a collectively structured perspective, takes to the acquisition of healthy nutritional behaviors, which are the quintessence of habits based education and health promotion.