*** Please note: there is no class next Monday for Thanksgiving. You only need to post here one time before the Oct. 17 class. In the meantime, please think about a topic for your research paper. When you are ready, send me your outline and then you can go ahead and start your research. I will be sending out a list of topics via class e-mail if you are not sure what you want to write about. Any of the topics shared in class from the news articles would be acceptable.
If you are interested in the war between healthy nutrition and the pharmaceutical companies, this informative documentary from Food Matters is free until Oct. 8: http://www.foodmatters.tv/screeningeventcinema
Enjoy the turkey!
re: last day's class
ReplyDeleteLast day's class regarding mental and emotional health helped me realize that it is not always obvious when someone is suffering from depressions. Prior to the informational video I had thought of clinical depression as the only real form of depression (where the person can no longer function due to their condition). I learned that people can function in society even with depression and are able to carry out day to day tasks. Their symptoms are not always the classic ones described in text books. They may not even be identifiable as depression.
re: on going self reflection project
So the junk food documentation kind of slid a little (i.e., I stopped keeping track) although I keep track informally in my mind how much junk food I eat a day. I think that I at least have one junk food item per day and I think that I'd like to cut it down to having junk food only 3 days a week. I'm taking it slowly, not trying to cut junk food out of my life but reducing my intake. I'll probably start by setting the limit to 3 days and see if i can work though it for a week.
One of the topics brought up in class last week was Southridge School’s motto. I had the opportunity of attending the school from the time it opened in grade 1 through grade 12. I have seen it over go many changes however the motto of “letting every spirit soar” never changed. Throughout the years, this motto was drilled into us. It was a challenge to ensure each student and faculty felt comfortable enough to be them self. One of main reasons I loved being a part of this community was because I always had the support from teachers and friends. Unlike many other schools, Southridge runs from kindergarten through grade 12, with a total of about 700 students in the entire school. Each class as no more than 22 students and as a result a sense of community is built within the school allowing students and teachers to get to know each other on a much more personal level that would not be given in any other school. From day one of grade 1 till the time I graduated in grade 12 I knew all the teachers and all the teachers new me. Being a Southridge Alumni student I can strongly agree with their mission when they develop well-rounded students. As a student we were constantly encouraged and challenged to take risks and try new things, not only when it came to academics, but sports, arts and extracurricular activities including service activities such as volunteering at soup kitchens and various other fund-raising activities.
ReplyDeleteThe information we got on mental/emotional health was really eye-opening. As a HSCI student, I took HSCI 214, Perspectives on Mental Health and Illness and we got lists and lists of symptoms of depression but to be able to see it, in person (or rather "in video") was interesting because it wasn't exactly like the list of symptoms in my textbook depicted and it just goes to show how different each person is and how its not always going to be exactly like you studied it either.
ReplyDeleteWhen we went over our newspaper articles, I noticed that a lot of the articles were about events that I wouldn't usually think were related to health but as we discussed the articles further, I started to see the connections to public health. Public health can be seen through a number of different outlets, depending on point of view.
Schools play a very big role in public health because in my opinion, the most important aspect of public health is the “public” aspect. How are you going to get the information out there to the people? Education is vital because it, like public health, plays a wide variety of roles in our everyday lives. Even teaching a student that exercising can reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases can make a huge difference in public health. This student may decide to try to do more physical activity and when their parents ask them what they learned in school today, they would tell their parents and their parents may also decide to try to do more physical activity and would tell their friends the same thing and so on, and so on.
I really found the video we watched on teenagers with mental health problems incredibly interesting. From first glance, every individual shown seemed like a normal, healthy adolescent. However, after listening to each of their stories, it is sad to realize that these problems are probably more common than we imagine in our society. What struck me the most was the way each of the teens dealt with their depression/mental illness, aside from medicinal help. Things such as poetry and karate were used and and it occurred to me afterward that I have also used coping methods whenever I have felt sad or angry. I don't suffer from a mental illness, but realizing that simple things in life, such as exercising or reading a book, can drastically change your mindset.
ReplyDeleteI thought bringing in news articles was a fun and interesting way to induce class discussion on issues that are relevant to many of us. Especially as the discussion progressed, it was easier to see how these article all related to health, whether it be biological, physical, mental, etc.
I found Kohlberg’s moral development theory very interesting. I took an ethics class during my studies at SFU and I really enjoyed the class. Although we explored different ethical theories, we never discussed the concept of moral development. Now that I see this categorization, it really does make sense of what I’ve observed while working with children. I have never viewed children’s actions as a stage of ethical or moral development but it does make sense. Society teaches children right and wrong, they apply it. But only later, once the brain has developed more fully and people have had more experience when right/wrong isn’t so clear-cut, do people start to develop more reflective and situation-specific ethics.
ReplyDeleteI did a quick Google search to see if I could find out how these stages tend to play out over the life course. I ended up coming across this link (http://otmh.net/section2.html then click on “Developmental Information”) which compares Kohlberg’s model with a model by Erikson. Erikson’s stages represent what “people go through in their lives and what they need to develop in healthy way.” Have a look at it. It is really interesting and I think it is a really interesting model that shows what contributes to good mental health during different life stages.
I am also highly interested in Kohlberg’s model, and as I have taken numerous developmental psychology courses, I distinctly remember an interesting fact about it. That another researcher by the name of Carol Gilligan proposed another moral development theory that opposed Kohlberg’s model. Because she stated that Kohlberg’s was sexist and the population tested was not representative because it only tested white, male children during the testing. So, Gilligan’s moral development stages were to show a more well-rounded point of view, including women’s, with regards to moral development and reasoning. Moral reasoning is a difficult concept to determine and psychology is rife with many theories and stages of development. However, there is no one universal theory because reasoning and morality is such an ambiguous and highly complex concept. I like to think that the theories are merely a guideline but we should not subscribe all of children’s thinking to stages or any sort of linear model because that does not seem rational.
ReplyDeleteThe video about teen depression and suicide was very moving and aptly depicts a prevalent issue in schools. It is difficult to come up with an action plan to address depression because it is such a subtle and insipid condition that children and teens are very reluctant to talk about it. Many do not even know that they have it, they are only aware of a growing heaviness or lack of happiness, motivation, or drive to continue many activities which they previously enjoyed. I think workshops would help educate a lot of children and teens about depression and especially if they name some key symptoms and signs of it. Knowledgeable health care professionals within a school, such as a counsellor, would also be beneficial. For some reason, my highschool counsellors were always geared more towards academics and it was never advertised in our highschool that if we had any emotional or stressful issues, that we could seek them out for help. So, perhaps making counsellors as more viable sources for emotional problems would also help as well. I just find that depression is a difficult thing to overcome by oneself, and the feeling of being alone is a heavy burden on anyone. And because there is a stigma upon depression, I think more should be done in making students understand that it is fine to admit they have it and not be afraid of being judged.
Recap of what happened in the last lecture:
ReplyDeleteDuring the last lecture we had, I thought the video watched on teenager depression was very captivating. At a first glace all the speakers seemed to be quite normal and social, especially the guy that was involved with the martial arts. I could not believe that he had problems meeting new friends and having relationship problems. He seemed like a person that was very outgoing and definitely did not come off as a guy who had problem meeting girls. The commonalities that all these individuals seem to share are they were all moved around during their teenage or childhood years. Their lives were uprooted and thrown into a society that did not welcome outsiders. I could reflect on how they must have felt because when I first came to Simon Fraser University I did not have a lot of friends. It wasn’t until a year later that I actually somewhat enjoyed coming to school because I had made a big enough network of friends.
Another thing that I thought was quite interesting is the fact that we had group discussions in class. It was interesting to see the different types of opinions that people had about health related issues drawn from the articles that we had to bring into class. A lot of people were quite passionate at defending their view points on things.
After watching the short film “Understanding Teen Depression,” I was very taken aback that despite the fact that those teenagers looked completely healthy, they suffered from depression, alcohol and drug abuse at one point. You only hear of these things when someone else shares with you their stories and emotions. Otherwise, we always fail to look passed that brave face that depressed teenagers try to put on. In my opinion, depression is derived from events taking place at home and then school before it carries on to take place elsewhere. Individuals who resort to cutting, alcohol abuse and drug abuse do so as a desperate cry for help. Students who are suffering from depression tend to suffer from addictions as well including alcohol, drugs, eating disorders, gambling tobacco use, emotional and physical violence, sexual abuse as well as anger management. The best way to treat students who suffer from depression is to attend counselling and/or psychological/psychiatric treatment. A lot of the times, these students must have their families involved in order to get better.
ReplyDeleteWe were asked to bring in articles for last week’s lecture pertaining to different health issues including obesity, eating disorders, depression, etc. An article that I found extremely interesting was the story about how some parents were forced to lose custody of their super-obese children due to the fact that they were simple unable to control their weight. I believe that a lot of the times parents of these children do not have the time or the money to cook healthy meals three times a day, which is a contributing factor as to why their kids are obese. Everyone in the class had their own opinions and judging by the discussion, most people believed that taking parents’ children away from them was a little on the extreme side.
Post:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gkIiV6konY
This video relates to a lot of what we have been talking about in throughout our class this semester in terms of Teen Girls and their self image and what they see themselves.
Here is a link to a documentary called Miss Representation. It focuses on raising awareness of women being "misrepresented" in the media. It is definitely worth watching and if anything you may find a topic of interest for the research paper.
Caroline wrote:
ReplyDeleteHealth Narrative:
Looking back on my last 10 days and the change taken place to my health goals; I see improvements but I also see some negative changes due to Thanksgiving weekend and many family dinners. As an Egyptian, refusing to eat at a family dinner or even eating small portions is an unpleasant sign of dissatisfaction with the food or with the company, so this past week I was unable to follow my healthy eating habits and keep everyone happy at the same time. However, the good news is, that I did make up for it by going to the gym at least 3 times this past week, as I promised myself I would. My sleeping habits haven’t really improved that much but I did try out my meditation goals and it is working for me, I am sure it will work better if I stick to my routine and keep it as a daily activity. I did stop going to Yoga, which is something I regret and I miss but it does take a lot of time and it is much harder to fit in my schedule. I am looking at alternative yoga classes that do not require 90min per session. I will update you guys if I find any good programs ☺
Caroline wrote:
ReplyDeleteBlog:
During our group discussions last class, one of my group members had a very interesting (and funny) article that she brought to class and we didn’t have time to discuss in our large group discussion. I do not remember the exact name of the article but it talked about the number of sex partners a women has and its relation to finding a husband. The article didn’t go deeply into the topic but the reason I found that to be interesting is that women’s sexuality is socially constructed to be very different from men’s sexuality. I think girls should be learning about society’s expectations regarding their sexuality not to necessarily follow them but to critically analyse them and possibly challenge them also. When discussing sex education during the early grades, teachers should not be afraid to mention the emotional and societal consequences of having sex at an early age not as a method of scaring children from having sex but as an awareness strategy.
Another topic, which resulted in a huge discussion in our previous class, was child obesity and the limited resources for parents in low-social economical situations to provide healthy options for their children. I wanted to share this awesome opportunity, which families with low incomes can provide for their children. I know this is available in Recreation centres in Surrey. You can apply for an annual pass for all family members to use the recreation facilities for only $12 a year per member! If you fit the requirements then you can apply for it! The Guildford Youth Lounge is a wicked place to come and hang out with your friends. Come for a game of basketball, soccer, ping pong, pool or to try out the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii. Be sure to talk to one of our great staff or check out the youth board in the youth lounge to find out about cool activities and events going on!
Preteen Drop-in Days and Times (Grades 5-7)
Thursdays 4:00pm-6:00pm
Fridays 4:00pm-6:00pm
Saturdays 2:00pm-4:00pm
Sundays 1:45pm-4:45pm
Youth Drop-in Days and Times (Grades 8-12)
Thursdays 6:00pm-10:00pm
Fridays 6:00pm-10:00pm
Saturdays 4:00pm-8:00pm
These are the times that are completely free!
Here is the website where you can apply for the annual pass as I explained earlier:
http://www.surrey.ca/culture-recreation/1773.aspx
This can help kids stay active with a low budget and in regards to food, I do agree that it does take time to prepare meals but there are ideas such as dedicated one day a week to prepare meals for the whole week (makes it easy and quick for the rest of the week) or going grocery shopping around the perimeters of the store.
Being healthy in a world where bigger is better (and cheaper) when it comes to fast food is definitely difficult but because we live in a country which is considerably helping its citizens (comparing to other countries around the world); there are opportunities which can aide in these healthy changes! No one said it will be easy, but it will for sure be worth it, as in the children’s lives worth!
Connor wrote:
ReplyDeleteThe movie “Understanding Teen Depression” really stuck close to home with me. When I was in high school one of my best friend’s brother’s committed suicide. His name was Mark, and to me it was something that happened completely out of the blue. Mark was always seemed happy and talkative. However after watching the video, it really opened my eyes to the fact that depression is not always obvious. After it happened I had many emotional talks with my best friend, and even he didn’t understand. His whole family had to go to therapy for close to a year. After talking to my friend, it seemed that behind the scenes Mark didn’t have many friends, didn’t have a job, and wasn’t involved in any sort of extracurricular activities. After watching the movie It was interesting to see that depression can be somewhat cured by physical activity or something where a person is a part of a group with common likes and dislikes. My best friend always told me that the hardest part for him to get over was the fact that Mark never talked to him about it. They always had a close relationship, but Mark never spoke a word of being depressed. My friend even started to blame himself for not listening or seeing the signs. It was a hard time for everyone. After it happened my friend and his parents went to therapy. Below is a couple links I found to local counselling for depression. I pray that I will never have to deal with something like that again.
1) www.counsellingbc.com/vancouver-counselling-depression.html
2) w.jerichocounselling.com/counselling
3) www.depressionhurts.ca
On a happier note, I also thought that bringing news articles to class was a very engaging way to start conversation in our class. It definitely worked as every student seemed to have a say. We even had a couple of debates break out. I am interested to see how the class will go this week. See you Monday