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

Abstract

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.