What Should We Be Worried About? Health and Fitness Reality Check

What Should We Be Worried About?  Health and Fitness Reality Check

What do you think is true?  Pick a statement and find out what the truth is.... 

*  The benefits of legal workout supplements outweigh the negatives (ie. Creatine, Whey Protein.  Be specific about which ones)

*  Going on a "Diet" doesn't work and is unhealthy

*  Milk Does the Body Bad...

*  Reducing stress and having close family friends is more important for your health than exercising vigorously

*  Lifting weights before adulthood stunts your growth

*Your post needs to include the following information and set up:

1.  Simply state what you believe to be true before researching. 

2.  Support of your position with what you learned as well as providing some opposing arguments.   Such arguments or claims must be backed by evidence from research articles. (any referencing format is suitable)

3.  After investigating what do you reason to be the truth?

*MUST HAVE MINIMUM 3 References.   Remember when researching to avoid biased websites with vested interests . For example, a workout supplement company putting out their own studies obviously in support of their product. 

50 Benefits of Exercise

50 Amazing Health Benefits of Exercise and Physical Activity

By Tony Schober, CPT

Here are 50 amazing health benefits of exercise and physical activity that will help to reinforce your need and desire to get fit. Each and every one of these benefits will improve the quality of your life.

50 Amazing Health Benefits

of Physical Activity

1. Improves mood by releasing endorphins .
2. Effectively treats anxiety and depression.
3. Relieves stress.
4. Improves sleep quality.
5. Improves brain function and memory.
6. Boosts metabolism & enables more calorie burning when at rest
7. Increases blood supply to the brain and muscles.
8. Improves recovery times when rehabbing injuries.
9. Increase concentration and alertness.
10. Higher life expectancy and living quality life.
11. Increases mitochondria for more efficient fat burning.
12. Improves energy levels.
13. Reduces the workload on the heart.
14. Enhances immune function.
15. Gives you stronger ligaments, tendons, and joints.
16. Improves cholesterol levels.
17. Stimulates bone growth, improves bone strength and density.
18. Helps prevent obesity.
19. Boosts testosterone production.
20. Improves balance.
21. Improves flexibility through increased mobility.
22. Improves muscular and cardiovascular endurance.
23. Healthier Skin.
24. Improves your day to day functional strength.
25. Reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease.
26. Increases self-esteem and self-confidence.
27. Makes you look younger.
28. Improves posture.
29. Effectively manages type II diabetes.
30. Protects against injury.
31. Increases growth hormone levels.
32. Helps prevent muscle loss when losing weight.
33. Makes you stronger.
34. Reduces your blood pressure.
35. Increases lung capacity.
36. Improves glucose metabolism.
37. Lowers body fat levels.
38. Reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s.
39. Reduces your risk of breast and colon cancer.
40. Makes you more productive and efficient at school.
41. Reduces your resting heart rate.
42. Helps you become a better fat burner.
43. Alleviate PMS.
44. Helps foster new and healthy relationships.
45. Helps control food cravings.
46. Sweat helps remove toxins.
47. Can help you quit smoking.
48. Increases lean body mass.
49. Makes you happier.
50. Makes you a positive role model for family and friends.

4 Pillars of the Active Learning Experience

 "Report Card" Assessment Post

As we have moved further and further away from teacher centred, sport/skill based marking in our Active Learning program we have asked you as students to learn to collect and reflect on the evidence of your own experience, effort and learning. This final post should pull from the best of your evidence, highlight your growth and learning, and set out a plan for the future. For report card posts in grades 8/9 we are legally required to provide a letter grade, and in 10-12 we need an actual percentage to go along with the more meaningful formative writing, so after discussing your semester you will need to put a summative evaluation on it.

As a way to help you organize your thoughts, the following breakdown for the "four pillars" and thematic questions can be used, but you may move beyond these in your explanation.

1) Participation- this category includes all of the factors around your ability to participate and the quality of your participation of in-class activities. Some things to consider would include: attendance and punctuality, wearing gym strip (actual change of clothing from what you wear the rest of the day),  physical presence/activity level during games, intensity of participation,  and the motivation behind your selection of activities on choice days.

2) Social Responsibility and Contribution to the Class- this category includes all of the factors that led to your improving skills around working with peers to make everyone's experience more positive. Some things to consider would include: examples of leadership (organizing others, encouraging peers), examples of initiative (helping with equipment, helping with other classes WITHOUT being asked to), positive energy and social dynamic during activities, honesty during competition and on fitness scores, and connections with the community/volunteering.

3) Healthy Living - this category includes all aspects of your past, current, and future data and goals on your health and fitness. Some of the things to consider would include: your actual fitness scores and what they teach you, note worthy changes in your fitness, some of the barriers/limitations you face in participating, dietary choices and extra curricular activity choices and their impact on overall health, injury prevention, management, and rehabilitation, and future plans/goals for overall health choices.

4) Digital Portfolio and Reflective skills: this category includes all aspects of your blog posts. Some of the things to consider would include: the total collection of digital evidence and number of posts, the quality of the selection of evidence as a demonstration of learning, the quality of the summaries/explanation of the evidence (with reflection of effort, new learning cited, research included, and future goals/plans set), the usefulness of comments on peers blog entries as a part of socially constructed learning and assessment, and your ability to synthesize your entries into a summative final post which provides evidence for your learning.

We have worked very hard to create opportunities for you to learn about being intrinsically motivated, to learn about and find value in personalizing your experience to best suite your own physical needs, and we have devalued the external motivators like grades as a reason for being your best. However, along with our legal obligations, we would like to have you understand the spirit of what grades are supposed to reflect, and rather than having your "stories" be excuses for unfair teacher assessed grades, have them be your evidence for co-constructed grading. To do this you need to be honest about the four pillars of learning and how well you approached each of them. While they are not set at 25% each, if you have minimal evidence for one or more of the pillars this should signal to you that you were NOT successful in that area, which would then be reflected in you self assessed final grade. The goal here is for you to be able to critically and honestly see yourself within the context of the pillars and the class. Nobody is perfect and nobody is without hope...