Introduction:

Health education plays a very important role for health promotion, prevention and limitation of harm. Health promotion contributes to the empowerment of people, individually and collectively, to build a culture of health and make healthy decisions. As part of the objec-tives of the subject Health Promotion in the Life Cycle, and with the purpose of carrying out a teaching experi-ence, we chose to study “Food, nutritional status and its relationship with attention disorders hyperactivity (ADHD) in high school students

Objective:

To evaluate the usefulness of action research in community practice, to favour teaching activity in obtaining meaningful learning and social commitment.

Method:

That of “action research”. A second-year group in the medical career was the protagonist of the process. A research project was developed in which the organization of previous experiences and knowledge in the study area was highlighted. A food questionnaire was designed and a validated questionnaire about ADHD was used, both were applied by the medical students, performed somatometry, gave talks for healthy eating and developed a database. After each activity, meetings were held with them to recover and organize the experience.

Results:

The students indicated that the activity allowed them to integrate what they had previously learned, identify their academic limitations, characterize a real public health problem, apply their knowledge and develop skills and identify the value of health promotion.

Conclusions:

Participation in activities where research is linked to action facilitates meaningful learning. Educational practice was considered as an action committed to the social context in which one lives.