Describe a healthy life-style by comparing and contrasting healthy and unhealthy choices

C. A fundamental mission of schools is the promotion of healthy behaviors by providing individuals with knowledge, abilities, and skills to become healthy and productive citizens. Optimal health leads to effective living, learning and enjoyment of life for all individuals. It is also an asset for students facing intense competition, peer pressure, stress, and a full program of intellectual and physical activities. The primary purpose of health education is the translation and integration of health concepts into personal behavior.

D. The Louisiana Health Education Content Standard offer a coherent vision of what it means to be health-literate. These Standard identify the knowledge and skills essential to the development of health literacy. In addition, the Standard provide a guide for enhancing and continuing education of teachers and as a blueprint for local curriculum developers. The Standard are broad enough to allow flexibility according to strengths or challenges identified in each community and to make them culturally relevant.

1. The elements described in this Section as “twenty-first century student outcomes” are the skills, knowledge and expertise students should master to succeed in work and life in the twenty-first century (Framework for 21st Century Learning).

2. Health literacy:

   • a. obtaining, interpreting, and understanding basic health information and services and using such information and services in ways that are health enhancing;
   • b. understanding preventive physical and mental health measures, including proper diet, exercise, risk avoidance and stress reduction;
   • c. using available information to make appropriate health-related decisions;
   • d. establishing and monitoring personal and family health goals;
   • e. understanding national and international public health and safety issues.

3. Learning and Innovation Skills. Learning and innovation skills are increasingly being recognized as the skills that separate students who are prepared for increasingly complex life and work environments in the twenty-first century, and those who are not. A focus on creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration is essential to prepare students for the future:

   • a. creativity and innovation;
   • b. critical thinking and problem solving;
   • c. communication and collaboration;
   • d. information, media, and technology skills.
   • i. People in the twenty-first century live in a technology and media-suffused environment, marked by various characteristics, including:
   • (a). access to an abundance of information;
   • (b). rapid changes in technology tools; and
   • (c). the ability to collaborate and make individual contributions on an unprecedented scale.
   • ii. To be effective in the twenty-first century, citizens and workers must be able to exhibit a range of functional and critical thinking skills related to information, media and technology