Welcome to Project Healthy Schools (PHS)

A community-University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) collaborative

Project Healthy Schools (PHS) provides a school-based program to reduce childhood obesity and its long-term health risks. Focusing primarily on sixth grade students, PHS aims to stem the tide of this epidemic by:

teaching youth healthy habits
developing healthy school environments
creating an infrastructure that supports program sustainability and replication

Healthy youth who continue to practice healthy lifestyles will grow into healthy adults with fewer risk factors for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other chronic illness. Project Healthy Schools is one of the few school-based programs that have demonstrated significant improvements in both health behavior and cardiovascular risk factors, such as reductions in:

total cholesterol,
LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol)
triglycerides
blood pressure

PHS News

APPLY TO IMPROVE THE HEALTH OF YOUR STUDENTS AND STAFF

A partnership with BCBSM called Building Healthy Communities: Engaging middle schools through Project Healthy Schools provides an opportunity for more middle schools to participate in the program. Apply today for the 2020-2021 school year.

PHS TEAM AWARDED PRESIDENT'S STAFF AWARD OF DISTINCTION

President Schlissel named the Project Healthy Schools (PHS) team as the winner of U-M's 2019 President's Staff Award of Distinction for teaching thousands of middle school students how to live healthy lives.

THINKING ON THEIR FEET

PHS was mentioned in an article in the spring issue of Findings, a semi-annual publication of the U-M School of Public Health. The article is about an in-class exercise program helps fight childhood obesity while kids learn.

COLUMBIA STUDENTS LEARN THAT CHOICES AFFECT THE 'LONG ROAD'

Over the course of about three weeks in each school year, the sixth-grade teachers at the Columbia Upper Elementary School in Brooklyn engage their students in a hands on study of 10 PHS lessons. Read the article.