Changing the food environment: the French experience.

The French National Nutrition and Health Program was launched in 2001. To achieve its objectives, 2 main preventive strategies were identified: 1) provide information and education to help individuals make healthy food and physical activity choices; and 2) improve the food and physical environment so that making healthy choices is easier. School regulations have been established to improve the nutritional quality of meals served to children and adolescents, and vending machines have been banned.

[Nutrition education in schools: evaluation of a teaching method "La Main à la Pâte"].

Teaching nutrition, in the broadest sense, with a comprehensive approach at the primary school level has become an epidemiological imperative. However, conventional methods can improve knowledge but they do not have the capacity to identify how this knowledge is applied through practical implementation in everyday life. The "La main à la Pâte" programme is a hands-on innovative teaching method for science education through experience.