Health, Why Wait?

We would teach a lot about health if there were a state standardized, high stakes test associated with that content. As it stands we just have the high stakes of students under-educated in healthful eating, exercising, life style, and self-reliant general personal health maintenance. High blood sugar, low levels of protein, irregular eating patterns, and inadequate water consumption in concert with sporatic (if any at all) heart-pumping excercise lead to behavioral challenges in the classroom and a long term societal burden.

So, if we know all of this, why are we waiting for a standardized test to move us forward? Why wait for legislation to force us? We're teachers, we have a moral obligation to model and teach proactive health maintenance. We are already witnessing grossly over-weight teen girls opting for lap band surgery when such conditions could have been avoided by simply knowing how to eat and exercise. We see young men, really young men, O.K., kids with their bellies wabbling over their pants.

We live in a country where there is a gym every few blocks, dozens of over the counter diet aids, and lots of out of shape people wandering around. When I was a kid growing up in the sixties, there were no gyms, well just those "body-builder" places, I didn't even know anyone using a diet aid, and everyone was thin. Back then folks probably smoked and drank too much, but that didn't apply to middle schoolers, but it does now.

Teachers can, and I predict will turn this around. Apparently, parents can't, the government can't, I don't see anyone from private industry stepping up. Teachers will do it.

Stef