The Importance of Health Education in Schools: A Focus on Children

This essay underscores the significance of health education in schools for children, emphasizing its role in fostering physical strength, mental alertness, emotional resilience, and social awareness. It references studies highlighting the impact of health promotion campaigns in schools, such as the German program "Komm mit in das gesunde Boot - Grundschule," which successfully integrated health education into the curriculum. The essay points out that schools play a crucial role in instilling healthy behaviors, particularly for children from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds who may not receive adequate health education at home. By incorporating health and hygiene education early on, schools contribute to shaping well-rounded individuals with lifelong healthy habits.

Running head: HEALTH EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS
HEALTH EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS
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1HEALTH EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS
Heath education at early stage of life is important as it helps to develop the children by
making them immune and physically strong, mentally alert, emotionally strong and socially
aware to learn every aspect of health. Jason et al. (2002) described the importance of health
promotional campaigns in schools to change behavior and cease substance abuse. Authors
Dreyhaupt et al. (2012) also demonstrated that physical education or promotion of mental health
is important for the kids as well as younger population, in developed and developing countries.
Obesity and imbalanced dietary habit are the primary concern of the healthcare society
nowadays as maximum of the younger generation throughout the globe is suffering from
disorders like obesity and blood pressure. Hence Dreyhaupt et al. (2012) investigated the helath
promotional plan "Komm mit in das gesunde Boot - Grundschule" of Germany, which is denoted
as the biggest health promotional program in Germany. The focus of the study was to investigate
the beneficial effects of this campaign on schoolchildren. The researchers found that the program
was able to meet its aim without harming the curriculum of those children as it involved
schoolteachers by proving them easy guidelines and lessons. This program included 427 primary
school kids and 890 teachers in Germany in the academic years 2009/10 and 2010/11, thereby
able to receive huge success. This study also indicated to the point that parents having low socio-
economic access are not being able to teach their children safety and healthy behavior.
Therefore, the early education in schools regarding health and hygiene helps to incorporate those
values within their behavior and character, making them a better human in later stage of life
(Barry et al. 2013).

2HEALTH EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS
References
Barry, M.M., Clarke, A.M., Jenkins, R. and Patel, V., 2013. A systematic review of the
effectiveness of mental health promotion interventions for young people in low and middle
income countries. BMC public health, 13(1), p.835.
Dreyhaupt, J., Koch, B., Wirt, T., Schreiber, A., Brandstetter, S., Kesztyüs, D., Wartha, O.,
Kobel, S., Kettner, S., Prokopchuk, D. and Hundsdörfer, V., 2012. Evaluation of a health
promotion program in children: Study protocol and design of the cluster-randomized Baden-
Wuerttemberg primary school study [DRKS-ID: DRKS00000494]. BMC Public Health, 12(1),
p.157.
Jason, L.A., Curie, C.J., Townsend, S.M., Pokorny, S.B., Katz, R.B. and Sherk, J.L., 2002.
Health promotion interventions. Child & family behavior therapy, 24(1-2), pp.67-82.