Enhancing educational, health and physical activity goals among children and adolescents : the development of school curriculum areas

Physical activity promotion is an essential strategy for improving the health of individuals and populations. For children and adolescents, especially those who are inactive or least active, the only opportunity to be in a supportive environment that encourages physical activity and reinforces health promotion messages is in the school setting. As such, schools have been recognized as one of the most influential, appropriate and cost effective settings for producing healthy, active and informed citizens, and in fact, state this as one of their educational goals. Unfortunately, challenges and realities have restricted such efforts. Set in the context of Australia's recent educational goals declaration (MCEETYA, 2008), the national assessment program (National Assessment Program of Literacy and Numeracy [NAPLAN]) and the United States of America (USA) 'No Child Left Behind' agenda, this chapter will analyse current pressures on schools to determine whether this setting is effectively achieving health promotion and educational goals. These pressures are then scrutinized in light of current evidence focusing on physical education and school sport, and the extent to which these curriculum learning areas can contribute to enhancing the education, health and physical activity levels of children and adolescents.