Lesson 3-38 "Good Health Habits"

Here it is, the lone lesson in this "Maintaining Physical Health" unit all by its lonesome. But just in time for cold & flu season!

It's quite similar to the health lesson from Manual 2, so check out my post from last year about that lesson (2-39), in which I show that I went w-a-y overboard because I was brand new to the calling and so eager to make a good impression. I even had party favors at that lesson, little bottles of sanitizing gel with breast-cancer-awareness-pink ribbons tied around the top.

There's not much to angst over here, since it's so straightforward. I sure would drop the lesson's obsessive focus with prenatal health and not jeopardizing the unborn. Please. Good health for its own sake, at this age, & don't use the scare tactic quiz about the big bad future. Women's health & young women's health is a worthy end in itself, and not just as a means to reducing birth defects! This lesson seems like just a good opportunity for an autumn check-in about how the girls are doing with self-care: handwashing, eating right, and getting off the couch now & then.

I am teaching a first-year seminar at my college this year and all the seminar leaders are supposed to do more than just teach their subject matter, but also promote the college's various orientation activities that last all fall, including alcohol education, safe-sex seminar, etc (obviously I don't teach at BYU). I have a student "mentor" assigned to my class and he comes in once a week. Last week we played "Stump the Chump" with him and the students asked anonymous questions. It was an interesting window into what first-semester freshpeople are worried about - mostly about in what ways college is going to be harder than high school. Anyway, one of the questions was "how do I stay well when everyone else in my suite is getting sick?" Great question, I thought. So many of my students come to class clearly sick: sniffling, sneezing, coughing productively, practically hawking up phlegm. I'm sure it's much the same in the classrooms our girls are in all week. All I can say is, wash hands, wash hands, wash hands. After using a public keyboard. Of course after touching surfaces in public bathrooms. After going to the store. Pretty much anytime you come back in the house from having been anywhere.

I did see this terrific article on CNN.com this week about not getting sick, which had a few suggestions I hadn't thought of before. But, young women are unlikely to get a professional massage. (I could use one, though.)