Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Katharina Wirnitzer, BEd - Österreich
Abstract of the presentation
Prevention First by School Curricular State Mandate – The Potential of School Health Promotion as a Key Building Block to Improve (Child) Public Health in Nations like the Czech Republic, or: How to Unlock the Dual HEAL Approach to Lifelong Health?
Branch: Other (Public Health)
Health is the natural state from birth, but it has to be earned over a lifetime. Consequently, children´s health is a nation’s greatest wealth, since health behaviour and habits track from childhood to senior ages. While health is free, the costs to treat the skyrocketing numbers of NCDs are unaffordable for nations. Therefore, and because (i) children/adolescents in the Czech Republic spend 40% of their daily waking time at school, (ii) complete 9 years of mandatory school attendance, and (iii) 19% of the population (1.8 million) are under 18 years of age, health policies that exclude schools are doomed to fail.
Simultaneously, according to ChatGPT, vegan/vegetarian eating (booming across all ages and social groups) is forecasted to be considered the norm by 2075, with youth as key drivers in the global shift towards healthier and more sustainable lifestyles. Also, the IPCC 2022 Summary Report for Policymakers reminds us of the fact that the greatest shift potential for sustainable health comes from plant-predominant diets.
However, since food and physical exercise are considered “medicines“, their continuous interrelated application is a highly effective yet simple tool for improving health. The dual HEAL approach to lifelong health with (1) Healthy Eating—ideally whole-food, plant-predominant, preferably vegetarian/vegan diets—permanently linked and interwovenly related to (2) Active Living—ideally daily outdoors, in nature, with physical activity, sports, and exercise—serves as the minimum recommendation and starting point to well-informed lifestyle choices, conscious decisions, and lifestyle changes. The HEAL approach serves to unlock the potential of the Power of Lifestyle to improve individual health over a lifetime. It is time to consider the fact that better public health in the Czech Republic will result from improved child public health only, with a snowball effect on society.
However, nationwide-determined school health promotion by curricular state mandate via the overarching educational goal holds huge potential left untapped to contribute to better public health for future generations, to match: (i) the need for improved vertical permeability of evidence-based health information, knowledge, and transfer to unfold the Power of Lifestyle to empower the young (with fourfold greater impact than the healthcare system) as the individual holds the greatest influence over one's health, and (ii) the “Prevention First” and “Prevention over Treatment” appeal of the European Commission that calls for actions across all levels and settings.
This keynote sheds light on a highly underestimated and mostly neglected body of evidence, providing insights into (1) youth health behaviour, spanning from school to university; and (2) a systematic review focusing on school curricula to identify the school health (promotion) potential. It further uncovers gaps and untapped potentials with urgency to be addressed and delivers potential solutions, including “why” and “how” the (child) public health mission is key for human development.
Based on the Health in All Policies strategy with its intersectoral action capacities, i.e. decision and policy makers at federal, governmental, and intergovernmental bodies including role models/multipliers in education, health, and care, this is a call to nations to set tracks for better public health by benefitting from the advantages of various synergistic effects resulting from the joint forces of inter- and transdisciplinary cooperation across scientific areas to engage relevant peer groups and sub-populations.
Keywords: child; adolescent; school health; health promotion; prevention; vegan; vegetarian, plant-predominant; physical activity; physical exercise; sport
Curriculum vitae
Katharina Wirnitzer is an Austrian sports scientist and Professor for Sports Public Health with a special Focus on Child Public Health. She works at the interface of PA, sports & exercise, vegan nutrition and sustainable health, and is head of the subject didactics team Exercise, Sports & Health. The major focus of her research cuts across the three disciplines and aims at the interface of sports, vegan nutrition, and sustainable health. Based on the experience of 20 years of working with athletes of all performance levels, mentoring (vegan) athletes, and advising them how to switch to and maintain a healthy and needs-based vegan diet, except for Prof. Wirnitzer, no other researcher/research group has continuously published original data within the past decades. The transfer of scientific findings to a broad public and in particular to practice-related settings (education, advanced training and education) such as schools, colleges/universities, recreational/elite sport, through application-oriented concepts relevant to everyday life, and its expression as health-orientated individual and public health actions is a particular concern of hers. Already in 2024 the representative Findings of the Austria nationwide school study From Science 2 School: Nachhaltig gesund – bewegt & veggie with Katharina Wirnitzer as PI have not only been considered within the latest Position Statement Paper on Vegan Diet of the German Nutrition Society (DGE), but also within the updated ÖGE-Empfehlung für vegane Ernährung (Science-to-Policy Transfer considering nutrition guidelines, have been revised up to 12/2024 and published in an updated form: „Ernährungspyramide“, „Der gesunde und nachhaltige Teller“). Accordingly, as an expert, she is permanent scientific advisor and to the Advisory Board of the ‘Platform for Promotion of Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Care (TCIC), Federal Ministry of Health, Czech Republic’.
Please note that some of the texts also include machine-generated translations.
