Students as Lifestyle Activists program to run in schools in June

The program, Students As LifeStyle Activists (SALSA), aims to both teach and empower kids to make better health decisions, and will roll out in Oxley High, Glen Innes High, Gunnedah High and Narrabri High in June.

"It's about motivating young people to eat healthy and be more active," Director of Prevention Education and Research Unit and clinical professor at the University of Sydney's Faculty of Medicine and Health Smita Shah said.

"Young people don't often take the messages from their teachers or their parents, and if we get young people listening to each other and influencing change amongst themselves, we are more likely to get better health outcomes," Ms Shah said.

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SALSA trains university students to guide year 10 students through creating interactive lessons on health, which they in turn deliver to year 8 students.

The year 8 students then build an initiative or an "action plan" for their school, which can involve anything from implementing nutritional guidelines to sourcing suppliers for water refill stations.

"The idea is that the students are empowered to take the messages on themselves and deliver them. Where we see the most powerful outcomes are in the year 10 students who deliver the program to the year 8 students," Program Coordinator Kym Rizzo Liu said.

The program has been running since 2005 and has helped decrease year 10 students' sugary drinks intake by six per cent and increase their physical activity by 13 per cent, according to an independent review by BMC Public Health.

"We're absolutely delighted to be able to partner with HealthWISE to take this program, which has been so effective in our schools in Western Sydney, to our rural communities," Ms Shah said.

She said the partnership with local non-profit came as a result of a SALSA alumni approaching the program while working for the organisation.

Six months later the program has arrived in Tamworth with volunteers from the University of Newcastle Rural Health campus eager to get on board.

"We know that there are gaps and health inequities in the rural communities, so it's really important that there are organisations like HealthWISE and we're happy to share the SALSA program with them because we know it works and we know that this organisation will be able to implement it in a way that's powerful for the New England area," Ms Liu said.

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