Promotion of physical activity, healthy eating and family health in municipalities with health gym

Abstract

The present study aimed at: 1) describing the prevalence of actions to promote physical activity and healthy eating and describing the characteristics of family health strategies in Brazilian municipalities funded to implement the “Health Gym Program”; and 2) verifying the prevalence of these actions according to the presence of Family Health Support Centers (FHSC) and the presence of physical education professionals and nutritionists in the health family teams. We conducted telephone interviews with public health managers in 2012 in all cities funded to implement the “Health Gym Program”. We described the frequencies (%) of the family health teams’ characteristics and of the physical activity and healthy eating actions, and we calculated the prevalence in municipalities with and without FHSC, and in municipalities with and without physical education professionals and nutritionists in the teams. We used the chi-square test to evaluate the associations. Out of a total of 5,570 municipalities in Brazil in 2012, 2,074 (37.2%) were funded to implement the program, and amongst them, 44.1% (n = 914 public health managers) participated in the survey. Most of the municipalities did not have FHSC teams (61.5%), though reported developing physical activity (84.1%) or healthy eating actions (83.9%). The education sector was referred to as a public partner in most actions. The prevalence of physical activity (91.5%, p < 0.001) and healthy eating (88.2%, p = 0.006) actions was higher in cities with FHSC than in their counterparts. The prevalence of primary care actions was higher in municipalities that had physical education professionals and nutritionists in teams. Having FHSC with physical education professionals and nutritionists is an important factor for promoting physical activity and healthy eating.

Health promotion; Health teams support centers; Physical Education; Nutrition