With the return of children to schools after the COVID-19 pandemic, a school environment that enables healthy eating and physical activity is more important than ever. In this new phase of their collaboration and cooperative work, OAS and PAHO are moving one step forward by proposing a capacity building and technical assistance program. It aims to support countries who wish to advance their policy and programming in drafting plans, offer training and facilitate experiences and proven implementations on monitoring and evaluation on the topics at hand.

Themes and Areas of action

• Healthy school food environments.

All foods available in school environments should be healthy and nutritious and comply with WHO/PAHO recommendations and food-based dietary guidelines. This topic is linked to front-of-pack labelling laws, PAHO’s Nutrient Profile Model, and the obesity prevention course.

• Promoting physical activity through schools: a toolkit

This topic relates to the promotion of physical activity trough schools in six domains: quality physical education, active travel to and from school, active before- and after- school programs, recess and recreation time, active classrooms and school curricula, and children with additional needs.

• Action framework for developing and implementing public food procurement and service policies for a healthy diet.

This action framework provides an overview of how to develop and/or strengthen, implement, assess compliance with, and evaluate, the effectiveness of a healthy public food procurement and service policy, including schools and linked to procurement of fresh foods from local farmers.

This hemispheric program is part of Working Group 2 on Intersectoral Agenda within the framework of the Inter-American Committee on Education (CIE).