Health and life skills kindergarten to grade

Health and life skills involves learning about the habits, behaviours, interactions and decisions related to healthy daily living and planning for the future. It is personal in nature and involves abilities based on a body of knowledge and practice that builds on personal values and beliefs within the context of family, school and community. Some examples of these learnings include the ability of students to:

•  make effective personal decisions for current and future issues and challenges

•  plan and set goals

•  employ critical reflection

•  cope with change and transition

•  manage stress

•  analyze and manage career and health-related information

•  recognize and expand personal skills

•  recognize, explore and expand career opportunities and options

•  explore service learning/volunteerism

•  commit to lifelong learning.

The home, school and community play important roles in contributing to the healthy personal development of students, by providing an opportunity for them to consider information and acquire, practise and demonstrate strategies for dealing with the challenges of life and living. The aim of the Health and Life Skills Kindergarten to Grade 9 Program of Studies is to enable students to make well-informed, healthy choices and to develop behaviours that contribute to the well-being of self and others. To achieve this aim, students require an understanding of self as the basis for healthy interactions with others and for career development and lifelong learning. Students also require a safe and caring school and community environment in which to explore ideas and issues surrounding personal choice, to seek accurate information, and to practise healthy behaviours.

Comprehensive School Health This health and life skills program of studies provides a basis for instruction in schools. To achieve overall health goals for students, curriculum connections between services and resources within the school and wider community are needed. A comprehensive school health approach is desirable.

A comprehensive school health model incorporates:

•  health and physical education instruction that promotes improved commitment to healthy choices and behaviours health and community services that focus on  health promotion and provision of appropriate services to students who need assistance and  intervention

•  environments that promote and support behaviours that enhance the health of students, families and school staff. The health of students is viewed as an integral  component of a larger system of health within the  home, school and community environment. It involves the establishment of collaborative partnerships among students, parents, educators,  health care professionals and other community  supports to address social and environmental factors that influence and determine optimal health.

Responsible, Healthy Choices To make responsible and healthy choices, students need to know how to seek out relevant and accurate information. They learn health-related information from many sources, including home, school, peers, the community and the media. The health and life skills program assists students in identifying reliable sources of information and in becoming discerning consumers of health-related information. Students research, evaluate and synthesize information in an effort to understand health issues and to apply the learning to current and future personal situations. Choices, as evidenced by related behaviour, are based on attitudes, beliefs and values.  The family is the primary educator in the development of student attitudes and values.  The school and community play a supportive and crucial role in building on these attitudes and values.

In the health and life skills program, students develop decision-making skills that build resiliency and self-efficacy, help expand strategies for coping, and support informed personal health practices.  Students develop personal responsibility for health, learn to prevent or reduce risk, and have opportunities to demonstrate caring for self and others. Students focus on personal and collective safety, as well as injury prevention.  Outcomes related to safety and injury prevention promote strategies to assess risk, to reduce potential  harm, and to identify support systems for self and others. 

Students learn about products, substances and behaviours that may be injurious to their health.  They also learn strategies to use in unsafe situations. Students are encouraged to promote and maintain health as a valued and valuable resource, and to examine health issues and factors that promote or limit good health.  They gain an understanding that, in addition to the effect of their individual behaviours on their health status, there are social and environmental factors that are beyond their immediate control, which also have a significant impact on their health.

In an environment of acceptance, understanding, respect and caring, students in the health and life skills program can learn to acknowledge and express personal feelings and emotions, as well as to appreciate the strengths and talents of self and others. There are opportunities for students to accept and appreciate diversity and the uniqueness of self and others in our global society.  This program emphasizes healthy interactions and values, such as integrity, honesty and trust that underlie safe and caring relationships. Friendship skills are developed and then extended to incorporate skills for working in groups. Such skills include conflict management, consensus building, negotiation and mediation. Students examine the various sources of stress in relationships, which include behaviour-related factors and those due to natural life cycle changes and transitions.  They learn strategies to deal with unhealthy relationships, as well as traumatic events. Throughout the program, students build and expand upon safe and supportive networks for self and others that link the home, school and community.

Students also develop the skills of goal setting, prioritizing and balancing various roles and life/work priorities.  As students develop decisionmaking skills, they begin to realize that the locus  of control, or their ability to influence or control many outcomes and results, is within their own power.

Through the health and life skills program,  students acquire a strong foundation of knowledge, skills and attitudes basic to employability.  Successful careers are founded on a basis of self-knowledge, self-esteem, healthy interactions, lifelong learning and skill development.  A fundamental aspect of career education is to move students from being dependent learners to being independent and interdependent, contributing citizens.  Students gain confidence and a sense of commitment to family, school and community through opportunities for participation in cross-age interactions, volunteerism and meaningful involvement in a variety of activities. Beginning in the early school years, students develop personal and group skills.  These are reinforced as the program expands to include practical skills directly related to further education, job seeking and career path exploration.  Skills related to the management of personal resources, such as time, energy, creativity, money and personal property, are essential elements that build personal capacity and lead toward future career productivity. Students build upon the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to recognize opportunities, critically evaluate options and expand career strategies to meet current and future challenges.

Creating A Healthy Environment: The Impact of the Built Environment on Public Health

Here at the start of the 21st century our understanding of which factors promote health and which damage health has grown considerably. The diseases of the 21st century will be “chronic” diseases, those that steal vitality and productivity, and consume time and money. These diseases-heart disease, diabetes, obesity, asthma, and depression- are diseases that can be moderated by how we design and build our human environment. It is now accepted that, in addition to direct hazards from infectious diseases and environmental toxins, human behaviors play a critical role in determining human health. As we begin to include consideration of these factors into our health-related decision-making, we must additionally guard against using too narrow a definition of the environment. Every person has a stake in environmental public health, and as environments deteriorate, so does the physical and mental health of the people who live in them. There is a connection, for example, between the fact that the urban sprawl we live with daily makes no room for sidewalks or bike paths and the fact that we are an overweight, heart disease-ridden society.

Obesity can increase the risk of (adult-onset) type 2 diabetes by as much as 34 fold, and diabetes is a major risk factor for amputations, blindness, kidney failure, and heart disease. The most effective weight loss strategies are those that include an increase in overall physical activity. In a recent type 2 diabetes trial, weight loss and physical activity were more effective in controlling the disease than medication. In addition, for treatment of relatively mild cases of anxiety and depression, physical activity is as effective as the most commonly prescribed medications. It is dishonest to tell our citizens to walk, jog, or bicycle when there is no safe or welcoming place to pursue these “life-saving” activities.

Respiratory disease, especially asthma, is increasing yearly in the U.S. population. Bad air makes lung diseases, especially asthma, worse. The more hours in automobiles, driving over impervious highways that generate massive tree-removal, clearly degrade air quality. When the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996 brought about a reduction in auto use by 22.5%, asthma admissions to ERs and hospitals also decreased by 41.6%. Less driving, better public transport, well designed landscape and residential density will improve air quality more than will additional roadways.

In order to address these critical health problems we must seize opportunities to form coalitions between doctors, nurses, and public health professionals and others such as architects, builders, planners and transportation officials, so that we are all “at the table” when environmental decisions are made. Such decisions include whether to install sidewalks in the next subdivision. It means thinking about what constitutes safe and affordable housing, safe neighborhoods, providing green space for people to enjoy where they live and work, and rethinking how we travel from one place to another.

Land-use decisions are just as much public health decisions as are decisions about food preparation. What, for example, are the implications for children with asthma of building yet another expressway? We must also question whether a fatality involving a pedestrian isn’t actually the result of poor urban planning, thoughtless land use, or inferior urban design rather than “simply” a motor vehicle crash. We must be alert to the health benefits, including less stress, lower blood pressure, and overall improved physical and mental health, that can result when people live and work in accessible, safe, well-designed, thoughtful structures and landscapes. We must measure the impact of environmental decisions on real people, and we must begin, in earnest, to frame those decisions in light of the well being of children, not only in this country but across the globe.

The health of Europeans

More than three-quarters (76%) of Europeans consider that they are in good health. Approximately one in five citizens believes  that  he  or  she  is  in  very  good  health (21%) or has a more neutral position (19%) as regards his or her health.  Only 5% of respondents described their health as bad (5%) or very bad (1%).

In the European Union, respondents in a majority of the new Member States tend to be more pessimistic about their health in general. The percentages vary considerably from one Member State to another: a small majority of Latvians and Lithuanians (52%) consider that their health is good or very good while the corresponding percentage is close to or higher than 85% in Denmark (84%) and Ireland (87%).There are similar differences if only the results of the “very good” replies are taken into consideration: the Irish (43%) and Danish (44%) are again among those who consider that their health in general is  very good. This time, however, they are  joined by citizens in Greece (46%) and Cyprus (40%). Citizens of the Baltic countries (from 5 to 11% of respondents from those countries consider themselves to be in very good health) while Hungarian citizens are more “negative” (11%) about their health in general. Among the candidate and accession countries, Turkey is the only one where the levels are very close to the EU average. On the other hand, those of the other countries are below the EU average.

An analysis of the replies by socio-demographic variables reveals that men are more optimistic about their health. Fairly logically, age is a discriminating variable; while 89% of young people (aged between 15 and 24) consider that their health is good, only 59% of people aged 55 and over make the same positive diagnosis of their health. The heaviest respondents and those who consider that they are overweight are more  likely  to  view  their  health  negatively.  This  suggests  that  such  people  are aware of the negative health effects of a high body weight.