Schoolbags part of holistic health too

From News
TODAY Tuesday July 15, 2008

Ong Dai Lin
dailin@mediacorp.com.sg

NUTRITION and physical exercise — these are the obvious elements of good health promotion in schools. But to create a holistic school environment, smaller factors, such as the weight of schoolbags, count too.

At an inaugural conference on school health hosted by the Health Promotion Board (HPB), a Hong Kong educator shared how her pupils help as “health ambassadors” to weigh their friends’ schoolbags.

“If the bags are too heavy, the ambassadors will teach the students how to pack their bags. For instance, they will teach them to not bring unnecessary books and to bring plastic pencil cases instead of metal ones,” Ms Lam Wai Ling, principal of Tai Po Market Public School, told 285 representatives from 225 schools here.

Holistic health is one of the goals of an inter-ministry collaboration formed this year — the Healthy Youth Committee — tasked to establish a “common vision” for healthy lifestyle among students, said Senior Parliamentary Secretary (Education) Masagos Zulkifli at the one-day conference.

And schools are also being recognised for programmes that focus more on holistic health through a joint awards programme by HPB and the Education Ministry.

One of the gold award winners this year, Pasir Ris Primary School, has installed lockers, for example, to address the issue of heavy schoolbags. “Having a lighter school bag will definitely help the well-being of students. Sometimes students tend to bring everything and their bags can be too heavy for them,” said PE teacher Shahizan Ahmad.

For Ang Mo Kio Secondary principal Tan Chee Siong, cyber wellness is one of his top concerns.

“Students are spending so much time online in front of the computer and are not leading a physically active lifestyle. They are also exposing themselves to potential cyber bullies and predators,” said Mr Tan, whose school won the platinum award this year.

According to Professor Lawrence St Leger, the keynote speaker yesterday, a conducive school environment is more important than lessons about good health.

“You don’t get any change if you teach health. But you get significant changes when you promote a healthy school environment when you combine action with the curriculum to get students involved,” said Prof St Leger, who has helped to implement health programmes in other countries.

HPB said that it would work with the don from Deakin University in Australia to further develop health programmes and guidelines for schools to follow.