At this point in time, we all know that there are many interacting aspects of health. As educated young adults, we recognize the importance of maintaining a healthy physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual self. One’s health is often in question if one of these many aspects of health is thrown off balance. The Physical Education for Body, Mind, and Sprit (BMS) Project has recognized the importance of both nutrition and physical exercise in relation to supporting one’s well-being as a whole. Come and Get It! Nutrition and Physical Activity for Lifelong Health is a California-based curriculum developed through the Carol M. White Physical Education Program under the U.S. Department of Education. This Santa Cruz-based program targets high school students in alternative education programs, including continuation high schools, community day schools, and schools in juvenile detention facilities. In case you are not familiar, continuation high schools are alternate education centers that teach students who are at risk of not graduating. Similarly, continuation high schools teach students who have been expelled from their respective schools because of either attendance or behavior issues. These students
Come and Get It’s yoga program in action in a Santa Cruz alternative education center.
may not be in a position to learn this information with their current education’s curriculum. Nutrition and physical activity is often covered in health and physical education. This topic may be overlooked at these alternative education centers. This curriculum was taught in four different schools in the Santa Cruz area.
This curriculum attempts to give these at-risk students the information, skills, and confidence to make healthy choices that support the well-being of their body, mind, and spirit. This 20-lesson curriculum starts by examining nutrients, food labels, caloric intake, and the food pyramid. After this basic nutrition information, the curriculum teaches lessons in the category of decision making, which includes but is not limited to body image and influences on nutrition and physical activity. Lastly, the curriculum discusses the importance of physical activity and its role in cardiovascular health, flexibility, and muscular strength. The curriculum concludes with a glimpse of the future and the goals that these teens would like to achieve.
This curriculum does an excellent job at explaining the importance and connection between nutrition, physical activity, and well-being that the students are able to grasp and remember. Moreover, I thought the curriculum had an optimistic overall message that may make the students feel empowered and hopeful about their future well-being. The curriculum truly aims at increasing the students’ sense of self-worth and confidence, despite the challenging circumstances that they are faced with. The curriculum that was laid out by the Carol M. White Physical Education Program contains a significant amount of information that equates to a 200-page curriculum that one can download as a PDF file. If this seems like a little too much, the Program allows you to select specific lessons that better suit one’s needs and interests. This specific selection of lessons allows one to spend more time on lessons that the students find intriguing and less time on the information that is a little more tedious. When I browsed the curriculum, I noticed that it seemed easy to use and follow along with, and I particularly enjoyed the color coating of information. This curriculum perfectly attempts to redirect the paths of these troubled students toward a more positive direction!
To view the curriculum in its entirety, check out the website for Come and Get It at http://www.pe4bodymindspirit.santacruz.k12.ca.us/index.html