“RØRE 6–19”: a health promoting school project in Norway

Østfold – a member of the Regions for Health Network (RHN) – is a county in south-eastern Norway, bordering Akershus and south-western Sweden. There are 290 000 inhabitants across 18 municipalities within the county. National statistics show that the inhabitants in Østfold are scoring low on several public health measures compared to the rest of Norway; that is, the education level is lower, there are more health problems and, overall, there are social inequalities in health.

Based on this, Østfold County Council has been working with health promoting schools for many years. In 2017 the council received funding from the Savings Bank Foundation DNB to a project called RØRE – which is about health, physical activity, nutrition, sleep and well-being as important factors for learning – building on the work the council is already doing with health promoting schools.

Most of the funding will be provided by Østfold County Council as grants to the schools in the county, based on formal applications describing high quality, universal measures that the schools want to implement. The schools that receive funding from RØRE are obliged to participate in the European Network of Health Promoting Schools.

The target group is children aged 6–19 years. There are 125 primary and lower-secondary schools and 14 upper-secondary/high schools comprising 46 000 pupils. School is a perfect arena to reach all children. The RØRE project aims to increase pupils’ knowledge about healthy nutrition, sleep and physical activity, and provide them with the skills to make healthy choices, both in the short and longer terms. Through this work, the aim is also to reduce social inequalities in health.

The overall goal of RØRE and the work being carried out with health promoting schools is to help a majority of pupils in the county to succeed and complete 13 years of education, in order to make them better prepared to meet the demands of society in terms of higher education achievements and their contribution to the labour market.

Research shows that there is increasing evidence of the association between physical activity, cardiovascular fitness, overweight, and cognitive function during childhood and adolescence. Evidence also suggests that these variables are linked to academic achievement. Hence, an important part of the RØRE project is to increase the overall level of physical activity in schools. The principal aim is to introduce more activity-based learning (education through movement) in all subjects and across the curriculum. The second key aim is to increase knowledge about healthy nutrition, and to introduce healthy food. In Norway, lunch is not provided by schools, which means there is wide variety in the quality of lunch that the pupils eat. One of the measures that schools might apply for is to enable cafeterias that can serve healthy food for lunch, or serve a free, healthy breakfast.

The RØRE project will start in the school year 2017/2018 and will run until 2020. It will be evaluated and will involve various research projects.