In order to motivate teenagers to make healthy choices, schools should allow their own staff, students and parents to plan and implement health initiatives. This approach provides solutions which best suit the specific school, according to health researcher Bonnie van Dongen from VU Amsterdam.
During adolescence, teenagers are making more independent choices, which they'll often bring into their adulthood. According to research, teenagers have been making more unhealthy choices: "We know based on national and international health trends that teenagers are drinking more sugar, eating more snacks and exercising less. These unhealthy choices could increase their risk of chronic diseases in adulthood," says health researcher Bonnie van Dongen.
Community capacity for a sustainable health promotion
Schools have a pedagogical duty and can motivate teenagers to make healthier choices, according to van Dongen. However, according to the researcher standalone health initiatives are difficult to sustain in the long term. Van Dongen argues that this is due to a lack of support and ownership: "Everyone in the school, i.e. students, staff and parents, must support these initiatives. Furthermore, the approach the school takes has to be tailored to and by them, so the school feels motivated to take action." Van Dongen therefore argues that schools should build community capacity. Instead of implementing short and one-time initiatives, schools should build the necessary skills, systems and structures themselves and foster leadership. By doing so, schools create sustainable processes to solve its own challenges about health.
Creating support and ownership via four-part strategy
According to van Dongen, building up community capacity consists of four strategies, which schools can enact simultaneously. Firstly, the school should encourage leadership by assigning a part-time coordinator within its own staff. Under the guidance of a health advisor from the municipality, this coordinator oversees the health initiatives of the school, and connects and motivates people to these initiatives. The second strategy consists of creating an environment where students, staff and parents can deliver input. This allows them to signify the specific problems of and possible solutions for the school. This enables the third strategy: designing specific health activities and plans for the school. Finally, van Dongen advocates for building networks with the school's environment, so they can systemically cooperate to improve the health of the students.
For this research project, Bonnie van Dongen and her colleague researchers collaborated with four schools. Together, they investigated how the schools could build up community capacity. "At one school, pupils felt that the stairs were too steep. From this challenge, the school came up with a fun activity: a relay race between students on the stairs. This motivated the students to take the stairs."
