Health invaders in New Zealand primary schools

Burrows, Lisette; Petrie, Kirsten; Cosgriff, Marg

doi:10.15663/wje.v20i3.221

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…Sources drawn on throughout the paper include a range of health education and health promotion resources and policies used in New Zealand schools and communities over the past decade. These were initially collated by the author as part of a project designed to map the array of health and physical activity initiatives present in New Zealand schools (see Burrows et al , 2015). For the purpose of this paper, exemplars are selected on the basis that they yield some insight into how children are being positioned as change agents with regard to family health.…”

Section: Theoretical Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another potential contributor to the positioning of children as family health change agents comes from an unlikely source: the New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007). As an ever-expanding array of health initiatives flood school programmes in New Zealand (Burrows et al , 2015), agencies have found themselves competing with each other for access to the school environs. As a result, many not-for-profit and commercial resources are now anchoring their activities to the New Zealand Curriculum in an effort to provide teachers with a curriculum aligned ready made resource (Penney et al , 2015; Petrie et al , 2014; Powell, 2015).…”

Section: Children As Family “Health Advisors”: Mapping the Terrainmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Children as change agents for family health

Burrows

2017

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore ways in which children and young people are being positioned as change agents for families through school health promotion initiatives in New Zealand. Design/methodology/approach The paper maps and describes the kinds of policies and initiatives that directly or indirectly regard children as conduits of healthy eating and exercise messages/practices for families. Drawing on post-structural theoretical frameworks, it explores what these resources suggest in terms of how healthy families should live. Findings Families are positioned as central to school health promotion initiatives in New Zealand, especially in relation to obesity prevention policies and strategies. Children are further positioned as agents of change for families in many of the resources/policies/initiatives reviewed. They are represented as key transmitters and translators of school-based health knowledge and as capable of, and responsible for, helping their families eat well and exercise more. Social implications While recognising children’s agency and capacity to translate health messages is a powerful and welcome message at one level, the author need to consider the implications of requiring children to convey health information, to judge their family practices and, at times, to be expected to change these. This may create anxiety, family division and expect too much of children. Originality/value The paper takes a novel post-structural perspective on a familiar health promotion issue. Given the proliferation of family-focussed health initiatives in New Zealand and elsewhere, this perspective may help us to explore, critique and understand more fully how children are expected to be engaged in these initiatives, and the potentially harmful implications of these expectations.

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Section: Theoretical Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%