The concept of sustainability derives from principles grounded in developing and maintaining a harmonious environment, society, and economy. Regardless of the discipline, these three areas must be the focus of concentration, as they are not mutually exclusive of one another. Above all, education must be recognized as the chief factor in achieving sustainability. Dr. Rosalyn McKeown’s Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit is based on the notion that success depends on a community’s willingness and ability to integrate education with sustainable efforts. Given the length of Dr. McKeown’s toolkit, it is virtually impossible for this writer to diffuse every detailed point. However, one is able to dissect key concepts deemed appropriate to teaching sustainability in the context of health education. Health Education is the “comprising of consciously constructed opportunities for learning, involving some form of communication designed to improve health literacy, including improving knowledge, and developing life skills which are conducive to individual and community health” (Kirch, 2008). The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics infers that health education specialists promote, maintain, and improve individual and community health. Considering these points, health education, in a philosophical sense, is rooted in the fundamental concept of sustainability. There are many factors which contribute to health education sustainability. Given the broad spectrum of health education, and all that the discipline entails, educators should focus efforts to assisting communities in making healthy choices and addressing major risk factors. At the forefront should be an emphasis on physical activity, healthy food consumption, ... ... middle of paper ... ...cco use. Concrete goals and objectives must be met and mastered in the pursuit of sustainable development. Forming strong partnerships to use and allocate resources is crucial to success. Policies must be created before training can ensue. Health educators left with the task of achieving sustainable development should not micro-manage the process. Above all, community members must understand and appreciate how personal health impacts the environment, economy, and society at large. Works Cited Kirch, Wilhelm. (2008). The Encyclopedia of Public Health. New York, NY: Springer Science and Business Media, LLC. McKeown, Rosalyn. (2002). Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit. Retrieved from http://www.esdtoolkit.org/default.htm The Health Education Specialist: A Companion Guide for Professional Excellence (6th ed.). (2010). Whitehall, PA.
Following that, “Plan Health Education/Promotion” is the second responsibility that health educators must follow—Furthermore, educators must “Involve Priority Populations and Other Stakeholders in the Planning Process”(NCHEC, n.d., p. 2). This requires greater involvement of the population that the plan will impact the most, in addition,
The World Health Organization (WHO) (2010) defines obesity and being overweight as an abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health. Body mass index (BMI) as Arterburn et al (2008) put forward is a measure of body fat based on height and weight and further suggest that any individual with a BMI of more than 30 is considered as obese. Tannahill et al (1999) advocate that health education could be viewed as communication activity aimed at enhancing positive health and preventing ill health in individuals and groups by influencing their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviour of persons with power and of the community. Butler et al (2008) defines health prevention as the measures for early detection of departure from good health. Whereas Heath (2002) concurs that the role and function of the nurse emphasise on health promotion and illness prevention, the Department of Health (2010) emphasises on the prevention of diseases, prolonging life and promoting health rather than treatment.
“Healthy People provides science-based, 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans.” ( United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Healthy People 2020 , 2011). It acts as a national guide for disease prevention and health promotion. There are various objectives and goals which serve as the guideline to achieve overall improvement in health . ‘Educational and Community-Based Programs’ is one of them. According to U.S Department of Health and Human Services the main goal of these programs is to “Increase the quality, availability, and effectiveness of educational and community-based programs designed to prevent disease and injury, improve health, and enhance quality of life.” (HHS, Healthy People 2020, 2011). This particular goal of Healthy People 2020 focuses on increasing the number educational and community based programs to increase awareness about disease prevention and health among every individual of the society. It focuses on educating them on various topics including chronic diseases, substance abuse, prevention of injury and violence to encourage and enhance health. It emphasizes on increasing the quantity and quality of such programs so that a larger population could benefit from the program and gain effective knowledge to achieve a healthy life.
The school of Health Education is a practice whose effectiveness is difficult to be matched. From being taught in a classroom, to presenting to a community, the curriculum is designed to increase quality of life through a plethora of strategies. To create a uniformed method of transferring this knowledge to others successfully, different philosophies have been created for health educators to use as a sturdy foundation. Philosophy is imperative to one’s teaching mantra, for it determines how one lives, works, plays, and generally approaches life; all of which are necessary to consider when passing on knowledge and lifestyles to others. Of these different philosophies, I believe that the decision-making philosophy is the most beneficial to health educators, and that the behavior-change philosophy is the least.
Simons-Morton, B. G., Greene, W. H., & Gottlieb, N. H. (1995). Introduction to health education and health promotion. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
Education is a very important factor in a person’s life and there is different parts of education whether that may be primary, secondary or further education like college or university. These skills and knowledge that is taught develop us into the person we become later in life. Learning just doesn’t stop after school or further education, each individual develops and continues to learn through life for example jobs and new experiences. Therefore, education is an important social determinant of health which can affect not only individuals but families and communities too as well as having a large impact on our physical and mental
Merging multi-literacies in Health and Physical Education could allow students to talk about topics of the genre more successfully and have knowledge of Health and Physical Education terms and language in daily life. According to Nutbeam (2000) interactive health literacy is a term which outlines the individual inspiration to maintain personal health. By teaching skills in the primary years to communicate and cope with health issues and physical activity will assist students in the schools of South Australia to know their personal requirements.
Sustainability has extended to our field; people have begun to understand the importance and necessity to introduce this practice into their life. All of this not
To reach a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, an individual or group must be able to identify and to realize aspirations, to satisfy needs, and to change or cope with the environment. Health is, therefore, seen as a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities. Therefore, health promotion is not just the responsibility of the health sector, but goes beyond healthy life-styles to wellbeing. Health promotion goes beyond health care. It puts health on the agenda of policy makers in all sectors and at all levels. It directs policy makers to be aware of the health consequences of their decisions and accept their responsibilities for
Shediac-Rizkallah, M.C., Bone, L.R (1998) Planning for the sustainability of community based health programs : Conceptual frameworks and future directions for research, practice and policy: Health Education Research. 12 (1) pg 87-108.
The five principles of HP include building healthy public policy, creating supportive environments, strengthening community action, developing personal skills, and reorienting health services (McMurray & Clendon 2015). The first principle aims to incorporate health into all public policy decisions beyond the health system so that living and working conditions become conducive to health and equity (Germov, Freij & Richmond 2015). According to McMurray & Clendon (2015), multi-sectoral collaboration is required among different sectors, such as education, industry and social welfare, with the reciprocally influential policies that guide the community health. The second principle emphasises the socio-ecological approach to health that promotes sustainable environment and broader social support systems that encourage a safe and satisfying life (Germov, Freij & Richmond 2015; McMurray & Clendon 2015). This principle requires to acknowledge the significance of conserving the physical or social resources that allow people to maintain health (McMurray & Clendon 2015). The third principle focuses on information and learning opportunities that enable communities to make knowledgeable choices for better health (McMurray & Clendon
Sustainability is a concept with a diverse array of meanings and definitions – a widely used glamorous, ambiguous, ambivalent and vague concept that is used by different stakeholder groups in various ways. Presumably to avoid noodling over a terminology or to avoid the confrontation with a definition, most widely the concept is broken down a planning process (c.f. e.g. Döring & Muraca, 2010). That is why most common sustainability is understood as sustainable development.1
Health is a vital component in our everyday life. If it is compromised, everything else goes down with it. Health affects an individual drastically; therefore, it is imperative that we take good care of our bodies in order to maintain normal body functions that can help us go through our normal day-to-day lives without fail. There are many factors that can affect health--one of them is Education. Health education feeds emotions that will motivate us to do a better job at being caretakers of ourselves. It can therefore, be said that health education can encourage people to act on their own personal health.
Sustainability development has three components: environment, society, and economy. If you consider the three to be overlapping circles of the same size, the area of overlap in the center is human well-being. As the environment, society, and economy become more aligned, the area of overlap increases, and so does human well-being. Therefore, education for sustainable development (ESD) is the use of education as a tool to achieve sustainability. Simply put, ESD is a way to make the world a safer, healthier, and more livable place for us and future generations (McKeown, 2002, pgs 7-9).
Thus, it is essential for graduates to understand and to have the capability to cope with various environmental challenges that we are facing today. For university students, most of their knowledge about sustainability is obtained from lectures. Whereas, Winter and Cotton (2012) illustrate that learning solely about sustainability is insufficient and that sustainability literacy must take into consideration students’ attitudes and dispositions in order to develop their strategies for reasoned decision-making. In addition, Winter and Cotton (2012) point out that the limitations posed by academic attitudes and disciplinary silos hinder the embedding of sustainability literacy in the formal curriculum. Therefore, if universities want to cultivate more students with sustainability literacy, then they need to focus on constructing more sustainable