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The approach to health education in our schools has been lacking in the past. In our efforts to be tactful, we sometimes become too general and lose the students attention and healthy intentions . To create an effective education on healthy life styles and maintaining good health will require that we stop being shy about the reality of what can come from lack of education.

DIET:

Health education should include instructions on the basic food groups, but should also include more instruction as to what eating healthy foods does to prevent the diseases that can come from a lack of them. We should describe why the body becomes diseased from the mal-nutrition of too much junk food. Any student in the USA will know what junk food is, but they may not realize what it does to them. The effects of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer should be something our students have a basic understanding of before they graduate.

HEALTHY MIND:

With the high rate of teenage suicide, we need to teach our students how much what they eat affects their mental stability. We need to teach what they can eat and physically do to reduce stress and implement happiness.

Any physical education class should teach the chemical effect exercise has on the brain and should include instruction on calorie counting as well.

Teaching students about reactions the body has to sugar, caffeine, alcohol and fat might teach them how to maintain a healthy mind, but we can't leave out what is unpleasant to take about. We have to provide an honest look of what might come if they don't maintain a healthy life style.

HOLISTIC VIEWS:

When children learn about traditional ways to relieve the symptoms of common aches and pains, they have a better way than alcohol and drugs. They need to know that health comes from a sound body, mind and spirit too. Without the good health of all three aspects of a human being, disease can come through various means.

Stress and depression creates disease as much as unhealthy eating, so we need to teach students the art of tranquility through meditation and other relaxation techniques. We could also use more education on the effect positive thinking has on the body and mind. There are various ways to demonstrate this effect on the brain by using published photographs of what happens to the mind in a peaceful state.

SEX EDUCATION:

Sex education needs to deal with every aspect of unhealthy sexual relationships. This would include instruction on what unhealthy sexual behavior is and why it's unhealthy. Too many children don't understand that it's unhealthy for a grown woman or man to have sex with them.

We should teach that a healthy sexual life style requires maturity, and WE should describe, in detail, the ramifications of sexual activity at too young of an age to accept the consequence, including pregnancy, disease and life altering damage to the human spirit. We need to teach what intimacy means.

SOCIAL SKILLS:

Let's not assume that students know how to deal with society or how to relate to other human beings. We should teach social skills so that our students might develop more healthy relationships.

The students in our schools might also need more class instruction on how to raise a healthy child as well, especially in the high school classrooms. if we educate our youth, it could be that the youth of the future will be more aware and prepared to be healthy, with sound minds at the same time.

Learn more about this author, Vicki Phipps.
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