Adolescents’ Behaviors, Fitness, and Knowledge Related to Active Living before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Greaux Healthy’s School Health Program provides faculty and staff with evidence-backed best practices, empowering professionals with the knowledge and resources to support children and families in nutrition education and health promotion.
You see it in the classroom and research consistently confirms it: healthy lifestyles support academic performance. Backed by the power of Pennington Biomedical scientific research, our Elementary School Health Program helps you create building blocks for behavior change and healthy learning habits by drawing on a powerful combination of best practices:
Social Learning Theory takes into account the way people learn behaviors, attitudes, and skills by observing others, emphasizing the role of social interactions.
Environmental Change integrates programs into familiar places such as schools, healthcare providers, and family interactions, overcoming obstacles to access.
Teacher Education equips instructors with knowledge, tools, and resources to empower change in the students they spend so much time with every day.
Home Connections reinforce what’s learned at school, helping families contribute to and benefit from healthier diets, more active lifestyles, and emotional support.
Model Policies are provided for schools to consider implementing policies that foster healthy students.
Student Workbooks are designed for classroom use, providing grade-appropriate exercises that align with the lessons and units. Each workbook enhances learning with activities that support Louisiana ELA standards, giving students a hands-on way to engage with the material.
The Classroom Teacher's Guide provides 2–3 lesson plans per unit, each with clear goals, objectives, and cross-curricular connections. Lessons align with: ELA standards, GLEs for health education. Lesson plans include guidance with scripting and prompts to support lesson delivery. Student independent practice assignments and knowledge assessments pair with the student workbook for a complete learning experience.
The PE Teacher's Guide provides 2–3 lesson plans per unit, each with clear goals, objectives, and cross-curricular connections. Lessons align with GLEs for PE and Health education standards and include guidance with scripting to support teaching. This guide features instant activities to reinforce knowledge—engaging PE activities designed for active, hands-on learning.
Research has shown that repeated visual cues reinforce learning. A collection of posters are available to reinforce content learned in the classroom and encourage students to make healthy choices and develop healthy habits. Posters should be hung up in the classrooms, cafeteria, school gym, and in other communal areas around the school campus. The posters coincide with the unit challenges and offer a fun way for students to engage with unit and lesson materials.
Unit Challenges are interactive games printed on large posters, designed to reinforce learning in a fun and engaging way. With themes inspired by Candy Land or BINGO games, students answer questions related to the unit's content to progress through the game. These challenges provide a hands-on, visual way to review key concepts while keeping students actively involved in the learning process.
Home Connections serve to educate and inform parents/caregivers/families about what their child is learning at school around healthy eating and physical activity. Home Connections help connect parents/families to the School Health Program and encourage the adoption of healthy habits at home. Home Connections also include an At-Home Activity to help both parent/caregiver and child apply the new tool or skill learned to their daily lives.
Unit Videos introduce a new unit to students in a visual and auditory way which can enhance learning for children with different learning styles. Teachers can play the videos before teaching that unit’s lessons and parents can rewatch the videos with their children to reinforce concepts at home.
Recent studies show a strong association with healthy habits and scholastic achievement. Compared to students with lower grades, students with higher grades are more likely to5:
Students with higher grades (compared to those with lower grades) are also more likely to6:
These same high-achieving students are also being less likely to6:
Adolescents’ Behaviors, Fitness, and Knowledge Related to Active Living before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Strategies in Addressing State Screen Time Policies in Early Care and Education Centers in Louisiana
Effect of an Environmental School-based Obesity Prevention Program on Changes in Body Fat and Body Weight
Modification of the School Cafeteria Environment Can Impact Childhood Nutrition
Schools that take part in the Greaux Healthy program are dedicated to helping students build healthy habits through nutrition and physical activity lessons. This helps kids feel their best and do well in school and beyond. We encourage families to join in by using fun take-home activities and resources to make healthy choices a part of everyday life!
Discover the variety of evidence-based tools and resources your school can use to make a real difference in students’ and families’ lives.
The program includes materials for school-wide health promotion. However, while Grade 4-8 students will receive the additional benefit of classroom and PE lessons.
It is recommended that the program begins alongside the new school year in August. However, it may be used over any 8-month period.
The program is designed to be delivered over 8 months, allowing you to flexibly fit it into your schedule, based on a timeline that works best for you.
By design, the lessons can be used in general education classrooms, physical education, ancillary/specials, or in programs outside of the traditional school day (for example: before and after care).
Greaux Healthy seeks to operate as your school health resource vendor of choice. While we don't directly implement our resources in schools, we offer program-specific professional development and technical support. School leaders will determine lesson facilitators based on school-building and staff capacity.
Community Action Projects offer financial support to schools for implementing the School Health Program. As early adopters, you'll receive up to $2,000, technical assistance, professional development, and both print and PDF versions of the resources and materials.
Thank you for your interest in the Greaux Healthy School Health Program! Complete the form on this page to get started.
2 US Census Bureau: 2021 5-Year ACS PUMS Microdata.
4 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2019.
5 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2019.
6 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2019.
Neuhouser ML. The importance of healthy dietary patterns in chronic disease prevention. Nutr Res. 2019;70:3-6. doi:10.1016/j.nutres.2018.06.002
Nutrition Education | CDC. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. School Nutrition. July 22, 2024. Accessed January 9, 2025. https://www.cdc.gov/school-nutrition/education/