Project lifestyle: developing positive health lifestyles for schoolchildren in Antigua

Countries of the English-speaking Caribbean are in epidemiological transition. Following 30 years of socioeconomic change, obesity and chronic diseases have almost replaced malnutrition and infectious diseases as major health problems. Major risk factors for this modern epidemic are lifestyle-related. Project Lifestyle seeks to develop positive health lifestyles in schoolchildren gradually, sequentially, and systematically from grades 1-12 and throughout the school system on the island of Antigua. The four health habits addressed include weighing right, eating right, doing daily physical exercise, and having a positive self-concept. Since risk interventions with schoolchildren have produced positive results in several developed countries, this project developed an intervention methodology in the Caribbean context.