What is the content of youth health guidance?

The current domestic health guidance for adolescents aged 10-18 mainly covers four major directions: physical health maintenance, mental health guidance, healthy behavior development, and social adaptability improvement. It is by no means a shallow service that "just cares about height and weight, and the absence of disease is considered healthy" as many parents think.

During the three years I have been doing grassroots youth health education, the most common question I have encountered is “My child can run and jump, so what kind of health guidance do I need?” ”Last week, when I was attending a consultation at the community health service center, I met the mother of a boy who was in the first grade of junior high school. Her child had not grown in half a year. She thought it was just "late growth". After asking, she found out that she stayed up late playing games until 12 o'clock every day and refused to eat milk and eggs. In fact, these are all things that are included in the physical health guidance for early intervention. In addition to routine growth and development monitoring, nutritional guidance, and prevention and control of common diseases, there is also more sensitive sexual health guidance. There are indeed different discussions in the academic circles on the content scale of this area. One group believes that it is enough to explain physiological changes and self-protection knowledge according to age groups, while the other group recommends that sexual health be included simultaneously. The content of education on gender equality and boundary awareness is now basically adjusted according to the acceptance of local parents when implemented in various places. It will not be one-size-fits-all. For example, in the upper elementary school, it mainly talks about the protection of private parts of the body, in the junior high school, it talks about the physiological changes of puberty, and in the high school, it talks about contraception and practical methods of preventing sexual assault. The acceptance is generally good.

Compared with visible growth indicators, invisible emotional problems have now become the top priority of adolescent health guidance. Last month, in the high school we were working with, a sophomore girl asked for leave for three consecutive weeks. Her parents initially thought she was being rebellious and didn't want to go to school, but when she was brought in for evaluation, it was discovered that she was already moderately depressed. It took almost half a year to intervene. It was a pity. Nowadays, routine health guidance includes regular emotional screening, stress relief techniques, and special guidance for school bullying and interpersonal confusion in adolescence. However, there are now different opinions on whether to include depression screening into routine physical examinations on campus. Some people worry that the screening results will "label" the children, which will cause psychological burden. Others think that early detection can lead to early intervention. Our current approach is that the screening results will only be synchronized with parents and full-time psychological teachers, strictly confidential, and try to balance the needs of early screening and privacy protection.

In fact, many health problems are caused by small daily habits, and this part of the guidance is also the most down-to-earth. For example, nine out of ten children now have the habit of lowering their heads to browse their mobile phones. The symptoms range from neck pain to scoliosis. When we enter the campus, we will bring a portable spine screening device and test the children on the spot. We will also teach them to do three minutes of relaxation exercises during class, which is much more effective than saying "Don't bow your head" a hundred times. In addition, many children now drink milk tea as water and order takeout. We will bring a sugar model to let them intuitively see how many cubes of sugar are in a cup of milk tea. Together with the week's student meal recipes, it is very practical and parents are willing to cooperate. There is also science popularization on e-cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs. We will also talk about real addiction cases. Last time we went to a vocational school to give a lecture, a boy originally thought that smoking e-cigarettes was "cool". After hearing this, he threw away the e-cigarette in his hand, saying that he was afraid that if he could not quit in the future, it would affect his driver's license test.

In addition to individual-level health, the ability to deal with the surrounding environment is also an important part of health guidance. For example, how to adjust your mentality when you encounter academic setbacks, how to communicate with your parents when you quarrel, how to refuse bad invitations from peers, and even scenario-based safety guidance on preventing drowning and telecom fraud. After all, health is not just about "not being sick". Being able to deal with the world smoothly and responding correctly to problems is truly healthy.

To be honest, today's youth health guidance no longer reads out articles from pamphlets, but adjusts the content according to the real needs of children. After all, children of this age have many ideas and change quickly. Only when the content is practical and relevant to their lives can they be willing to listen and the guidance can really be effective.