Schools are doing their part to improve the health of their students but parents and businesses can do more, according to Marie Beach Johnson.

The Healthy Schools co-ordinator said adults must support and model a healthy lifestyle, while businesses could provide healthier food options.

“Schools are generally doing all they can to help to improve the health of their students, but the parent support and buy-in has to increase for Bermuda to really see a marked difference,” Ms Beach Johnson told The Royal Gazette. “The adults in children’s lives must support and model a healthy lifestyle. After all, children do not purchase their own groceries or prepare their own meals. They learn about physical activity by watching the adults in their lives and their peers.”

Ms Beach Johnson said cafeteria and hot lunch food vendors must also be more consistent in their level of compliance with the Healthy Schools nutrition policy, and create attractive, tasty, and affordable meals that were healthier.

“Businesses could also provide healthier food and meal choices, and decrease the high sugar and high fat food choices that are so available to children outside of school,” she said.

The Healthy Schools Programme was set up in 2004 to help schools to educate students in eight areas of health, including health education; physical education; health services; counselling, psychological and social services; nutrition services; health promotion for staff; healthy and safe school environments; and family, parent and community involvement.

It falls under the Department of Health, which is looking to tackle the Island’s obesity and overweight problems, as well as other risk factors for non-communicable diseases.

According to the 2014 STEPS to a Well Bermuda survey, three-quarters of adults are overweight or obese but no recent statistics are available for children.

The Fitnessgram computer application is being used in schools this year to provide a better picture of children’s health and to establish the proportion of children in primary year five to secondary year three who are at an unhealthy weight.

According to Ms Beach Johnson, about a decade ago it was suspected that between 25 per cent and 33 per cent of children were obese and overweight.

However, without the results of the Fitnessgram assessments, which are expected at the start of the next school year, she said it was hard to tell if there had been any difference.

Ms Beach Johnson said Healthy Schools had increased schools’ awareness of the breadth of health across the eight components and the connection between academics and health.

“Schools involve students in more informal, unstructured physical activity than they used to and discuss the importance of eating breakfast and healthy lunches and snacks, every day,” she said. “Schools also participate in more health-promoting activities than they used to, with a greater understanding that a particular activity can help improve one’s health.”

They are also encouraging children to take part in more after-school and weekend activities to increase their levels of physical activity.

“Schools are excellent with that,” Ms Beach Johnson said. “Every school encourages children to be active.”

But she added that schools could only do so much and urged parents to take a more active role in getting their children interested in exercise.

“It isn’t that the children are lazy — a lot of it stems from parents being concerned about their safety when they’re unsupervised at home alone until parents come home from work.”

She said this led to children being sedentary, but added that a lack of affordable and healthy food, as well as role models, was also contributing to the problem.

Ms Beach Johnson said that if parents could introduce their children to physical activity at a younger age, they were more likely to enjoy it as they grew up.