What is the content of youth health education guidance?

The youth health education guidance currently promoted by the government has long gone beyond the traditional scope of "preventing myopia and controlling tooth decay." The core is full-scenario guidance covering the four dimensions of physical health, mental health, healthy behavior development, and social adaptability. It cannot be implemented by just one lecture per semester.

Last week, I went to a junior high school in my jurisdiction for regular supervision. As soon as I entered the door, I met the head teacher who pulled a red-faced boy over and said that the child had reached the stage of changing his voice in the past two weeks. He was nicknamed by his classmates for speaking hoarsely, refused to go to the stage to read the text, and even wanted to take leave from the Chinese class. This kind of confusion about adolescent growth and development is the most basic content of physical health guidance. In addition to common knowledge about puberty such as voice change and the development of secondary sexual characteristics, the prevention and control of common student diseases such as myopia, scoliosis, and obesity, as well as emergency treatment of accidental ingestion of toxic substances and sports injuries, are also included in this category. Oh, yes, here is the most discussed sex education content. There have been different opinions about the scale: many parents are worried that too detailed content will arouse children's curiosity. Some practitioners in the disease control and education sector believe that clear body boundary notifications and the popularization of necessary protection knowledge can help children avoid the risk of sexual assault earlier. Nowadays, it is basically designed according to age groups in various places. The primary school level focuses on body boundary awareness, the junior high school teaches the physiological changes of puberty, and the high school adds responsibility awareness and protection knowledge to try to balance the concerns of both parents and schools.

Compared with visible physical confusion, the emotional problems hidden in children's hearts actually require more attention. I once met a girl who was a sophomore in high school. She would suffer from gastroenteritis before every monthly exam. She went to the hospital several times to check and found no organic problems. Later, after talking to the psychology teacher, I found out that it was a physical reaction accumulated from long-term stress due to her mother always comparing her with her cousin who was number one in grade. Today's mental health guidance is no longer as simple as persuading children to "relax". It must teach them how to identify their own emotions, how to seek help when encountering school bullying, academic pressure, parent-child conflicts, and emerging problems such as Internet addiction and appearance anxiety, which are also included in the scope of guidance. However, there is also a lot of controversy in this area: some schools believe that students who are screened for depression and anxiety should be advised to go home and recuperate to avoid extreme incidents. Some experts believe that randomly labeling children with "psychological problems" and depriving them of their normal rights to go to school will aggravate symptoms. The current mainstream approach is to establish a layered intervention mechanism. Mild emotional problems will be followed up by school psychologists for follow-up counseling. Those who meet clinical diagnosis standards will be referred to professional medical institutions. They will communicate with parents and schools throughout the entire process, and will not make one size fits all.

There are also many contents that are easily overlooked, but they are actually hidden in daily health behavior guidance. Last month, we conducted scoliosis screening in primary schools in our jurisdiction. The detection rate of fourth-grade children was close to 9%. Most of them were caused by lying on the table doing homework for a long time and lounging on the sofa watching short videos. This part of the guidance will not talk about any general principles, but will be integrated into the usual recess exercises, canteen meal preparation tips, and safety reminders after school. For example, it will teach children how to choose schoolbags with appropriate load-bearing capacity, how to control the frequency of drinking milk tea and eating puffed food every day, and how to deal with game recharge scams and blind boxes around campus to induce consumption. To put it bluntly, it is to help children develop healthy living habits that can benefit them for a lifetime.

In fact, after having been doing health education for teenagers for so many years, my deepest feeling is that these contents are never about giving children a bunch of "not to do" prohibitions, but to help them establish the awareness that "they are the first person responsible for health" and know who to ask for help when they encounter problems. This is more effective than memorizing several pages of health manuals.