This week, we discussed the onset of puberty, and how it correlates to health related decisions that adolescents make. We then researched two unhealthy decisions of our choice that affected a large portion of adolescents. I looked at data on girls with eating disorders, and boys being involved with sex at a young age. After our class discussion, I have prepared two ways I can use in my classroom to encourage my students to make healthy decisions.

 

Eating the Right Foods: Our society has unhealthy food options at our fingertips, especially in metropolitan areas. The economy charges us more for healthy food, and fast food is quick and easy, and requires no cooking. So it is no wonder why it is easy for us to make unhealthy food choices. If we begin making healthy choices at a younger age, we are more inclined to keep these habits as we age. However, sometimes we don’t know how to make healthy choices. I have found some resources that I could incorporate into my classroom. It is important to note that we as teachers could easily incorporate healthy eating topics into courses other than Health and Phys. Ed. As long as you relate it to the subject you are teaching, there are many avenues a teacher could go to incorporate healthy eating. My Food Guide is an interactive tool that customizes Canada’s Food Guide to meet your own needs. You will become more familiar with portion sizes and how much of each food group you should be eating. I could easily embed this activity into my lesson, or have the students create their own food guide for homework and bring it to class with them for a discussion. Portion control and proper servings is essential to a healthy diet. Another resource I found provides tips for teens to make smarter food choices. The blog suggested that teens eat breakfast, eat healthy 80% of the time and unhealthy 20% of the time, trying a new fruit or vegetable each month, etc. The ideas were very intuitive and easy habits to pick up. I would talk to my students about each of these health tips and provide them with the link to the blog. The most crucial message to get across to our teens is that there is nothing wrong with unhealthy food on occasion. However, stressing the implications of eating unhealthy over a long period of time is vital to get them thinking about making the right choice.

 

Let’s Talk About Sex: We all know that talking about sex can be an uncomfortable situation. However, we want our teens to be smart about making decisions. With the growing number of diseases and teen pregnancies, we as educators need to provide our students with the “safe sex talk”. I found this amazing infographic on pinterest that includes everything from STIs, contraception, statistics, etc. It is a great visual and summary of the topics that would be discussed in a sexual education course. However, it is important to delve into these topics more deeply for students to really grasp the repercussions of their actions. Another resource I found was teachingsexualhealth.ca which is provided by Alberta Health Services. The website provides lesson plans, online workshops, instructional methods, games, videos, and much more. What I really enjoyed about the website was the sexual health questions tabs. This section provided FAQs that students typically ask. Since we are not health professionals, it is useful to retrieve information that is accurate. It is important not to scare the students or make sex seem like it is all negative. We just want positive outcomes, and the more education they have, the less likely they will make the wrong choices.