Weight: Effects on Health and Attitudes

This course is designed to help teachers and their students acquire an historic and consumer perspective of dieting. Different diet routines and their planned outcomes will be reviewed along with their associated medical implications. Cultural expectations, personal motivation, and the regimen of exercise will be explored. Also included is developing the sensitivity of teachers to potential dangers students may experience during weight reduction. Course assignments encourage participants to integrate specific national standards for physical education. Objectives for each lesson are modeled around standards-based learning as identified by Shape America's National Standards for Heath.

This course is basically about teaching students how to use the various tools to improve their self-image through maintaining a healthy body weight. Students will learn the effect of weight on self-esteem and how culture affects a person's weight. They will compare and contrast a variety of weight loss programs and diets including fad diets and faulty weight loss schemes. They will examine weight bias in the media, explore various techniques of weight loss motivation, and calculate the effect of physical exercise on weight loss. Finally, they will create a number of lesson plans they can use to help their own students manage weight and develop positive self-images.

NOTE: Required book must be acquired separately.

This course is applicable towards the Health Education Teaching Certificate.