Lesson 1.1: Exploring Health and Wellness

Overview

This lesson focuses on understanding health, wellness, and illness and develops the skill of identifying and analyzing influences on wellness and how the stages of behavior change can affect personal health and wellness.

Learning Targets

  • LO1: Explain the difference between health, wellness, and illness.
  • LO2: Describe the stages of behavior change.
  • LO3: Describe the interrelationship of individual, social, environmental, and genetic influences on a person’s health.
  • LO4: Analyze the relationship between healthy behaviors and personal health.
  • LO5: Analyze the types of influences that affect personal health and wellness.

Preparation

Chapter Opener: Use the chapter 1 My Well-Being Self-Assessment as a reflective introductory activity to start the chapter. This activity will allow students to identify their own health levels as they relate to their physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual well-being.

For the Warm-Up Activity: Write the Journal Question on the board or identify (and copy as needed) the worksheets you plan to use:

For the Content Focus: Make copies of the Lesson 1.1 Note-Taking Guide. Project the Lesson 1.1 PowerPoint slides.

For the Lesson Focus: Copy the Lesson 1.1 Skill-Building Challenge Worksheet: Analyzing Influences on Your Wellness. Prepare for a share activity by collecting sticky notes (two to three per student) or whiteboard markers (8 to 10 dry erase markers). Draw a table on the whiteboard with five columns. Title each column with a different part of wellness (physical, emotional, social, spiritual, intellectual).

Warm-Up Activity

Select a warm-up activity to help get your class focused and on task.

  • Self-Assessment: Have students complete the My Well-Being Self-Assessment as a chapter opener.
  • Journal Question: Why do you think it can be hard for people to change basic health behaviors like their exercise or eating habits?
    • Option: Write or project the question and have students respond in their journal or on their “bell ringer” sheet as they enter class.
    • Option: Have students discuss the question with a partner or in a small group.
  • Vocabulary Review: Have students work individually, in pairs, or in small groups to complete the Lesson 1.1 Vocabulary Review Worksheet.
  • Quiz: Have students complete the Lesson 1.1 Quiz to assess their prior knowledge.
    • Option: Collect the quiz and use it alongside a posttest to demonstrate student learning.
    • Option: Have students share their answers with a partner and then go over the answers together as a class.

Lesson Content

Review the content from the textbook lesson.

Lesson Focus: Analyzing Influences on Your Wellness

  1. Give each student a copy of the Lesson 1.1 Skill-Building Challenge Worksheet: Analyzing Influences on Your Wellness.
  2. Option: Have students work individually to complete the worksheet.
    Option: Assign students to work with a partner to brainstorm influences on their health.
  3. Option: Give each student two to three sticky notes. Ask students to pick two to three different influences on their health and write down each one on a sticky note. Ask students to bring the sticky notes to the front and stick them on the whiteboard in the correct column or part of wellness that influence relates to. Review with the class the influences you see. Read several aloud and ask students to volunteer to explain the influence to the class as a whole.
  4. Option: Ask students to come up and write an influence on the whiteboard (using a dry erase marker) in the correct column or part of wellness that influence relates to. Review with the class the influences you see. Read several aloud and ask students to volunteer to explain the influence to the class as a whole.

Challenge Activity

Have students needing an additional challenge work on the following Thinking Critically task.

How do you think the influences on your health will change as you age? Think about life in decades (10-year periods such as ages 20-29). For each decade, describe what you think the biggest influences on a person's health would be at that age. Explain your response.

Reflection and Summary

Review the critical content from today’s lesson. Review the learning targets and ask students to answer each question posed.

Can you...

  • Explain the difference between health, wellness, and illness?

    Health is the state of being free of illness or disease. Wellness is the positive component of health that involves having a good quality of life and a good sense of well-being. Illness is a general word we use to describe not feeling well or not being fully healthy.

  • Describe the stages of behavior change?

    In stage 1, a person refuses to recognize that change is necessary. In stage 2, a person is thinking about making a change but has not taken steps to implement it. At stage 3, a person has thought about changing and has taken steps toward making the change. At stage 4, a person has made some changes but still needs to make more. At stage 5, a person has made a definitive change and is sticking with it.

  • Describe the interrelationship of individual, social, environmental, and genetic influences on a person’s health?

    Even though you cannot control personal determinants of health (heredity, age, sex, etc.), you can make healthy choices that are the best for you given your personal circumstances.

  • Analyze the relationship between healthy behaviors and personal health?

    Choosing to make healthy behaviors can provide a wide range of benefits to personal health: having more energy, being more emotionally stable, learning better, feeling your best, achieving goals and aspirations.

  • Analyze the types of influences that affect personal health and wellness?

    Personal health and wellness can be influenced by personal determinants that you have no control over such as your age and sex. Heredity, another factor you cannot control because it is determined primarily from your genes, is another influence. Personal health and wellness can also be influenced by environmental determinants such as noise, sunlight, pollution, and your access to healthy food and recreation facilities; you may have some control over these aspects especially as you get older and live on your own. Your personal health can also be influenced by social determinants such as your relationships with people close to you and their choices about drinking, smoking, eating healthy, and being physically active.

Assessment

Complete one or more of the following assessment tasks for this lesson.

Take It Home

Give the wellness questionnaire from the start of this chapter to someone in your family or household. Explain what each component of wellness means and ask the person about factors that might influence their wellness. How do their influences compare to yours?

Option: Assign the My Well-Being Self-Assessment as a homework task if it was not used at the start of this lesson.