Make your move to a healthier school

The It's Your Move! program, was an initiative of Deakin University and ACT Health.

The project used three intervention schools and compared them with three 'control sites', targeting students aged between 12 and 16. Data was collected from 656 students, including BMI measurements and self-reported behavioural changes over a three year period.

At the program's end, two of the three intervention schools showed a significant decrease in the number of students classified as overweight or obese, compared to no change in the control group.

Lead author Prof Steven Allender, director of the Global Obesity Centre within Deakin's School of Health and Social Development, said the program was unique in that it looked at a whole range of contributing factors to obesity in combination.

"The intervention included multiple initiatives at individual, community and school policy level to support healthier nutrition and physical activity," Allender said.

"Each school developed a Food at School policy that encompassed canteen food, food at sport and fundraising events, and school catering.

"The policy included instigating a traffic light colour coding system for food sold at the canteen, healthy morning teas for staff to encourage positive role-modelling, cooking classes after hours for staff and students, and increased access to water fountains in the school yard."

Each school also picked a key objective, including increasing active transport, increasing time spent physically active at school and supporting mental wellbeing.

Allender said there was a significant decrease in depressive symptoms at the school that had made a special goal of improving mental well-being through the promotion of healthy eating and physical activity.

"Students who reported symptoms of depression dropped from around a quarter of the group, to just over 17 per cent," he said.

"This is great evidence that modifiable lifestyle behaviours - like what we eat and our amount of daily physical activity - can affect our mental wellbeing.

"Yet the number of obesity prevention interventions that include mental health follow-ups is low. We think this work demonstrates that community interventions can, and should, be multi-purpose.

"Systems thinking is the critical next stage in obesity prevention. We can't keep looking at health promotion activities in isolation from each other. A holistic approach is what is going to get results."

After the initial trials at Alfred Deakin High, Calwell High and Melrose High, who participated in the pilot, It's Your Move! has now been rolled out to 11 high schools in the ACT and 11 communities in South Western Victoria, with a further 100 communities on a waiting list to take part.

The results were published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.