"Escola em Ação" (School in Action)

Background: The health promotion actions carried out in the school environment have positive effects on reducing risk factors for chronic diseases in adolescents. Interdisciplinary strategies involving school and family to increase the level of physical activity among adolescents, inside and outside the school, are essential to encourage healthier lifestyles. Aim: To determine whether a 24-weeks interdisciplinary intervention program promotes improvement in the level of physical activity, physical fitness, sleep quality, life satisfaction, eating habits and reduce the sedentary behavior of schoolchildren aged 10 to 13 years of public schools in the city of Presidente Prudente, São Paulo, Brazil. The intervention: Includes training of teacher Physical Education in the principles of self-determination theory and ecological theory at practical applications for motivating adolescents in physical activities and sports. The students will be given information on the benefits of a physically active lifestyle and will be encouraged to participated the new opportunities for physical activity in their school and community. The program will offer physical activity strategies over the 24-weeks during class Physical Education, afternoon recess and active lesson breaks in theoretical classes. Nutritional guidelines and gardening experience will be developed to encourage healthy eating habits among schoolchildren and to reduce salt, oil and sugar in the preparation of school lunch. Methods/design: The project, which being conducted as cluster randomized trial, is to evaluated whit in a mixed methods, including qualitative and quantitative approach will be used for the construction of the actions integrated to the school physical education curriculum and evaluation of the program by the participants and supporters. The RE-AIM evaluation metric (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance) is used to guide the validation this program.