Coordinated Approach: Comprehensive Policy and Action Planning

Abstract

Background: Schools play a vital role in student health, and a collaborative approach may affect health factors such as physical activity (PA) and nutrition. There is a lack of recent literature synthesizing collaborative approaches in K-12 settings. We present updated evidence about interventions that used a coordinated school health approach to support K-12 student PA and nutrition in the United States.

Methods: A 2-phase literature review search included a search of systematic reviews for individual qualifying studies (2010-2018), followed by a search for individual articles (2010-2020) that evaluated a coordinated approach or use of school wellness councils, committees, or teams to address PA and/or nutrition.

Results: We identified 35 articles describing 30 studies and grouped them by intervention type. Interventions demonstrated promising findings for environmental changes and student dietary and PA behaviors.

Implications: Coordinated and multicomponent interventions demonstrated significant improvements or null results, indicating that implementation of programs and/or policies to promote healthier eating and PA practices may support and do not appear to hinder environmental or behavioral outcomes.

Conclusions: Schools can use a coordinated approach to implement opportunities for PA and nutrition; this may influence students' PA and dietary behaviors.

Keywords: coordinated approach; nutrition; physical activity; school health.

Figure 1:

Identifying articles to include from systematic reviews (Phase 1) and individual searches (Phase 2) Abbreviations: PA, physical activity; SME, subject matter expert. *See introduction and methods paper at the start of this special issue for full project flow chart. **Out of scope: Wrong outcomes, process data only, single point in time cross-sectional, wrong date, or wrong topic. For example, in Phase 2 multicomponent obesity prevention interventions were considered out of scope.