Programa Perseo ¡come sano y muévete!
Health Professionals
Inappropriate lifestyles in childhood can have consequences throughout adulthood, impacting on an individual’s quality of life and making them more susceptible to disease. Like other habits, the establishment and consolidation of nutritional practices and physical activity have their decisive moment in childhood.
Obesity is a public health problem of increasing importance in Spain. In the vast majority of cases (up to 95%) its cause is exogenous, in other words, the result of an unsatisfactory calorie balance and therefore, related to diet and physical activity.
Apart from causing psychological and organ problems in children, it is the main cause of obesity in adults, increasing the risk of developing respiratory and cardiac diseases, arterial hypertension, dyslipidemia and musculoskeletal problems. It is also associated with the increase in cases of type 2 diabetes in all ages.
To adequately prevent chronic non-transmissible diseases associated with nutrition and inactivity it is vital that educational interventions make children aware of the importance of their own health. The intervention programmes aim to promote and protect health through nutritional education, to promote physical activity and to provide health education information.
In these pages you can find health-related information such as: the health centres close to the schools participating in the programme, information relating to anthropometric measurements, a guide to childhood obesity for primary health care professionals, the questionnaires used to gauge the state of healthy eating and exercise in children, families and schools, and information on the importance of nutrition and physical activity for health.
