Hey Gang,
It amazes me how much our knowledge on the topic of being “healthy” has grown, how much more educated we are compared to the 18000’s and prior. The idea of health and what it means to be healthy in the 21st century has changed immensely since the Victorian era. To be considered not healthy, one merely was not physically/visibly “sick” or able bodied (1800’s)and then we move forward to the evolution of the UN’s World Health Organizations idea of being healthy. The WHO states that to be completely healthy one must be physically, mentally and socially healthy. The history has changed significantly but interesting enough has remained the same over the past 6 decades, which shows me that research that was conducted 60 years ago was thorough and included not only the physical but included mental and social aspects of being healthy.
Mental health is a major part of being healthy, and one of the 3 components of being an overall healthy individual (physically and socially being the others). I feel that as a Healthy Living teacher for the past 7 years, I have broadened my knowledge extensively through PD sessions and my own personal research. There are many websites one can look to when seeking help or information on mental health specifically. As an educator in the Halifax Regional School Board and a youth worker who works with at risk youth, I see many mental health cases on a day to day basis. Four years ago our community was in mourning when a young girl took her own life because she was mentally tortured. She suffered major mental trauma via cyber bullying and eventually couldn’t take it anymore, so she took her own life. For those of you who haven’t heard the story of Rehtaeh Parsons, it is a sad but interesting story of a young girl who suffered in many different ways.
I have attached the story “No Place to Hide”, a story about Rehtaeh Parsons.
http://trinetraproductions.com/noplacetohide/
This story was eye opening for many in our community and after this terrible situation our school board focused on monitoring mental health closer and educating our students more extensively on the topic. We were given many more resources and our school board brought in specialists in the area of mental health. Kids were made aware that they are never alone when feeling mentally defeated. In this week’s reading we learn that there is a rise in homelessness in Canada and the job rate is at an all time low-a bad combination. In the province of Nova Scotia it is very tough to find employment, so people uproot and take off out west to work in the oil fields, which has since been on a decline. As a country we are not doing a great job with the promotion of health. Many people think that following a balanced diet, not being over weight and being physically active makes you healthy, but we learn from our readings it’s much more than that.
I am a sports fan and former varsity athlete at Cape Breton University. This week in Atlantic University Sport is “Bell Let’s Talk” campaign that targets mental health. This is a great program put on by Bell that hopefully can open our eyes to mental health.
