The public school system offers several different types of health care services to students concerning issues that are a problem in 21st century schools. Two of the top concerns in public school health care concern the on topics of reproduction and obesity. With over 50 million students attending public schools, it is important to recognize and understand that school systems have a responsibility to provide health care education and services that will educate and hopefully improve the health of all students.
Public schools in the 21st century provide many basic health care services. These services include having a full or part-time school nurse, dental care, mental health, special education programs, child obesity programs and reproductive health care. Schools are required to have at least one school nurse available on the premises. It is also important for public schools to be equipped to handle any kind of situation that might challenge a student’s learning ability such as having a learning disability, ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), depression and even food allergies. ...
...reduce teenage pregnancies which disrupt students’ lives. Moreover, contraceptives enable sexually-active students to avoid sex-related dangers such as STDs. Finally, despite the fact that contraceptive use by students attracts different reactions, birth control is necessary to students so as to prevent the numerous harmful effects that come from unsafe sexual practices.
From Kindergarten to 12th grade, children spend most of their time at school. School, what we adults think, is supposed to be the teachers of our children while we are at work. They feed them lunch, and possibly breakfast, five days out the week, keep them active, and teach them all about their body and health in health class. But, are they really taking care of them enough? Some schools fail to serve healthy foods, teach health class, or even provide enough time to be physically active. One in three kids are obese, that is reason enough to care about these children’s lives at school. Schools are one of the reasons that the younger generation has a fast growing obese rate.
The program called Don’t Be a Sexual Statistic (DBASS), is based on the HYA and implements their mission to provide truthful information regarding reproductive health education in the North Carolina school system. This program requires all seven to ninth graders to have a class every semester or year pertaining to each grade level, teaching the students about reproductive health education. The target group for DBASS, is young children to teenagers from ages twelve to fifteen. This focuses on seven to ninth graders in the North Carolina school system. With students today ages fifteen to nineteen having sex a least once (Guttmacher.org, 2010), shows that the old ways of teaching health education needs to be revised. This statistics shows that increasing knowledge with comprehensive sex and reproduction health could help lower the statistics and help the students make wiser decision in their future.
The nation is suffering from a new epidemic from a program that had good intentions. The obesity rate for children has distantly increased over the past years and is continuing to grow. In the past thirty years, obesity has more than doubled in children and has tripled in young adults. This problem has both immediate and long-term effects in health and well-being in children and adolescents. The ...
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Prevention. School Health Policies and Programs Study. September 30, 2002. April 6, 2003.
Buddha once said, "To keep the body in good health is a duty...otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear." Students need a healthy body which leads to having a healthy mind. Once a child is in good health, they will feel better about themself which will make them succeed in everything else they do. A huge debate that is going on all throughout the United States is this- Should schools provide one healthy meal for students to help end the fight of childhood obesity? Schools are beginning to pick up the slack for the lost direction that children should receive at home. Childhood obesity is a growing epidemic all through our country. If we do not begin to take the initiative and stop this problem, then it may begin to spread worldwide. Americans need to realize the severity of the situation and begin to take in more seriously rather than brush it off as a light topic.
"The increased prevalence of overweight and obesity particularly among children and adolescents is a severe public health problem" (Bray, 2005). According to our text, health education and health promotion are recognized increasingly as ways to meet public health objectives and improve the success of public health and medical interventions around the world (Gollust, 2014).
Sex is a natural, healthy part of our lives and we have the right to a proper sex education in schools. Sex education in schools have been a controversial topic since 1912, which is when teachers began to be trained on how to teach sex education. The main debate today is whether the sex education should focus on abstinence-only programs or comprehensive programs. Abstinence-only programs focus on teaching students that the only socially acceptable time to have sex is during marriage and abstinence is the only way to protect yourself from contracting STD’s and from becoming pregnant. Comprehensive sex education focuses on reducing the spread of STD’s and teen pregnancies by giving you the facts and information of the different forms of contraceptives that are available. Although America’s various cultures have different views of sex education, it’s important to teach students proper sex education in schools because there is hardly any
For instance, kids who are obese have a better chance of getting cancer and other health problems,“They found that each unit of increase in being overweight at age 13, generally corresponding to a two- to three-point increase in B.M.I., increased the risk of developing colon cancer by 9 percent, with the risk of cancer of the sigmoid colon (the part closest to the rectum) increased by 11 percent” (Brody). Obesity can risk a child’s life in many ways. In addition, these health problems for kids can result in death, “In fact, health officials say that obesity--a condition in which a person is dangerously overweight--is one of the biggest health crises facing the U.S. today. It can cause all sorts of serious problems, like cancer and heart failure, and it's a leading cause of death. It's also affecting a shocking number of young people: More than 16 percent of kids ages 2 to 19 are obese” (Lewis). Obesity is one of the biggest health problems that is still questioned on what the solution is. Although health problems are a problem, schools are adding in exercise programs and encouraging kids to walk or bike to school. “With the strong leadership of the mayor, the blue-collar city of Somerville, Massachusetts, lowered the rate of obesity in its elementary schools by promoting exercise in schools, smaller portions in restaurants, health counseling, and biking and walking to school. (The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation supported all three of these initiatives.)” (Ambinder). Schools are now realizing that kids need their daily exercise in order to stay healthy and stay in shape. Obesity can cause many health problems and risk a child’s
Many schools in America face the problem of their students being obese. Schools can help by educating their students on portion size and introduce them to healthier options. They can also modify their exercise requirement and keep in contact with families.
Free health care access will be costly at first, but by using NP’s, PMHNP’s and PHN’s in each school where prevention interventions will be managed, the long-term benefits will even out. If each child has at the least annual screening for; mental health needs, obesity prevention, diabetes, cardiac issues related to sedentary lifestyles, a lot of expensive healthcare needs
Sex education in public schools has been a controversial issue in the United States for over a decade. With the HIV and teen pregnancy crises growing, sex education is needed.
Educational institutions have the potential to, first and foremost, educate and assist the young people of today with making the positive, healthful choices necessary to maintain good health. Over 4,500 students have been followed in recent research studies and these “thousands of sixth graders who participated in a school-based health program were less obese by eighth grade than a group of similar children who did not, according to a new study done for the National Institutes of Health” (Rabin). Schools need to create health programs focused on assisting all children suffering from being overweight or obese. Policies such as fitness programs, nutrition classes, and healthful meals can even impact every student by creating a strong foundation and awareness of the negative, long term effects associated with practicing unhealthy habits. Although the financial expenses would be necessary, the adaption of scho...
Meeting our basic human needs lie largely in part to being health literate individuals,and we should hold health instruction to a high regard with our students. Producing health literate individuals can lead to our students living up to their full potential. For our students to be able to perform at their optimal level, they need to be well aware of how to use health resources and call upon well-known health facts to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Since our students spend the majority of their time learning from their educators, it would be inevitable for our schools to start including a health instruction in the curriculum of the school. To give students the best health instruction, our schools need to have strong and universal standards that
Tappe, M. K., & Galer-Unti, R. (2013). U.S. Policies for School Health Education: Opportunities for Advocacy at the Local, State, and National Levels. Health Promotion Practice, 14(3), 328-333. doi:10.1177/1524839913475624