Happy Monday and welcome to Week 9 of our course! This week, we will be connecting the information learned from the last two week's topics of nutrition and exercise with the upcoming chapter of weight management. During this unit, I'm going to challenge you to use your personal experience and views of what "healthy" is and looks like, while also utilizing the course resources and textbook to help clearly guide how we all can strive to achieve a healthy lifestyle in a safe way.

Make your original post in DB9 by Wednesday at 11:59pm, and reply to 2 classmates by Sunday at 11:59pm
Complete the Unit 2 exam through the khpcontent.com website by Sunday at 11:59pm.
OPTIONAL: Complete the extra credit assignment about your BMI in this week's module by Sunday at 11:59pm.

The objective of this week is:

"Apply the dietary recommendations to diet planning throughout the life-cycle and in the promotion of fitness/physical activity, weight management and disease prevention."

Let's take a look at different Olympic athletes' body types, as well as their associated BMI's.

Body outlines of Lebron James, Holley Mangold, Ryan Hall, Michael Phelps, and Gabby Douglas.

These individuals all have very different health and fitness demands. However, one aspect is true of all of them: they are all the top performers in the world at their respective sports. If we look at these elite athletes just as numbers on the BMI scale, many aspects are missed such as endurance levels, muscular strength, percent of body fat, flexibility, in addition to technique, physical and mental training, and nutrition.

What does this all add up to?

We are all more than just a number! Through the first 8 chapters of our textbook, you have learned that health and wellness are dynamic. How we view ourselves and the world, what we put into our bodies, and how we move are all controllable factors within health and wellness.

Eating Disorders

Unfortunately, there are many other factors that can influence each individuals views of themselves both physically and emotionally. As stated in chapter 9 of our textbook, "Nearly half of all teenage girls and a third of teenage boys use methods to keep weight off that are unhealthy. The unhealthy methods include fasting, using laxatives, self-inducement of vomiting, and smoking. From a societal perspective, girls and boys are subjected to an environment that approves a thin body type. Unfortunately, young girls and boys are extremely vulnerable to this societal pressure because of the lack of self-concept and self-esteem and turn to unhealthy methods to meet approval." (Scheidt, 2016).

Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa are two of the most common types of eating disorders that are extremely unhealthy weight management techniques. Please watch this 3 minute video on the psychological aspects of Anorexia.

In our society, especially for adolescents, "skinny" is way too oftentimes associated with healthy or ideal. Think about what we have learned so far in this class about nutrition, fitness, and even stress. There is much work that needs to be done to change the dialogue from aiming to be skinny or little, to healthy, strong, and fit. What are different factors than can help contribute to this change in dialogue?