PHYSICAL FITNESS AND HEALTH LITERACIES

WHAT IS THIS LESSON ALL ABOUT? (Introduction)

 Physical literacy is the development of a range of basic human movements,

fundamental movement skills and foundational sport skills. These skills give
people the tools to engage in health-enhancing physical activity for life.
 Individuals who are Physical Literate consistently develop motivation and ability
to understand, communicate, apply and analyse different forms of movement.

 Health literacy means empowering people with medical knowledge. Health-

literate people are able to address their own health needs along with the needs of
others. They are able to obtain and apply knowledge and skills to enhance their
own health and the health of others — both now and in the future as their needs
change throughout their lives.
 Individuals have the capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health
information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.

 Physical Education and Health Education. An individual’s physical and mental

well-being is the concern of two similar areas of education: health education and
physical education. Both deal with habits of exercise, sleep, rest, and recreation.
Since physical well-being is only one aspect of a person’s overall health, physical
education is often thought of as a part of health education.

WHAT WILL YOU LEARN? (Objectives)

 Definition of Physical Literacy and Health Literacy

 Benefits of Health Literacy
 Impart knowledge on how to develop and maintain Physical Fitness
 Provide knowledge and skills needed to lead healthy lifestyles.
 Understand the role of the teachers in the learning process of Physical Fitness and
Health Literacy.
LET’S TRY THIS!

ACTIVITY 1

Make a collage showing physical fitness and healthy eating habits. Pictures must not
be taken on the internet.

CRITERIA PERCENTAGE
Content 40%
Creativity 20%
Originality 20%
Relevance 20%
Total 100%

ACTIVITY 2

1. What are the consequences of a child missing out on learning a critical fundamental
movement like throwing or catching?

2. What could be done in schools that ensure children become physically literate?

3. What is the major problem facing a parent who wants to ensure that a child
develops physical literacy?

LET’S STUDY (Lesson)

Physical literacy can be described as a disposition to take advantage of embodied human

capacity in which the individual has the motivation, confidence, physical competence,
knowledge, and understanding to value and take responsibility for maintaining
meaningful physical activity throughout life. It has been shown that active people have
higher health literacy than inactive people. In addition to providing monitoring of
activities to increase physical activity, a comprehensive approach could also focus on
health and physical literacy.
Developing and maintaining physical fitness literacy throughout the years will help
individuals to participate in physical activities and gain associated health benefits.

The Elements of Physical Literacy

Motivation and Confidence (Affective)

Motivation and confidence refers to an individual’s enthusiasm for, enjoyment of, and
self-assurance in adopting physical activity as an integral part of life.

Physical Competence (Physical)

Physical competence refers to an individual’s ability to develop movement skills and

patterns, and the capacity to experience a variety of movement intensities and duration's.
Enhanced physical competence enables an individual to participate in a wide range of
physical activities and settings.

Knowledge and Understanding (Cognitive)

Knowledge and understanding includes the ability to identify and express the essential
qualities that influence movement, understand the health benefits of an active lifestyle,
and appreciate appropriate safety features associated with physical activity in a variety of
settings and physical environments.

Engagement in Physical Activities for Life (Behavioural)

Engagement in physical activities for life refers to an individual taking personal

responsibility for physical literacy by freely choosing to be active on a regular basis. This
involves prioritizing and sustaining involvement in a range of meaningful and personally
challenging activities, as an integral part of one’s lifestyle.

IMPORTANCE OF PHYSICAL LITERACY

 Developing and maintaining physical literacy throughout the years will help
individuals to participate in physical activities and gain associated health
benefits. When a person feels competent and skilled in fundamental movement
skills and ABCs, it supports them in their work-related physical activity, their leisure-
time physical activity and in all kinds of daily living activities.
 Having good physical literacy can help people maintain their independence and
make physical adaptations when facing the challenges that come with aging.

Physically Literate People are able to:

 Develop the motivation and ability to understand, communicate, apply and analyse
various forms of movement
 Demonstrate a variety of movements confidently and competently across a wide
range of physical activities
 Make healthy, active choices that are both beneficial to and respectful of their
selves, others and environment.
 The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor
skills and movement patterns.
 The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles,
strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
The physically literate individual demonstrates the knowledge and skills to achieve
and maintain a health-enhancing level of physical activity and fitness.
 The physically literate individual exhibits responsible personal and social behavior
that respects self and others.
 The physically literate individual recognizes the value of physical activity for
health, enjoyment, challenge, self-expression and/or social interaction.

SKILLS IN PHYSICAL LITERACY

Physical literacy develops a “movement vocabulary” of fundamental movement skills

and fundamental sport skills. Developing this physical competence is paramount to
engagement in physical activity. The fundamental skills used in countries all over the
world. It is important to note that these skills are prerequisite to learning sport skills.
FMS are broken up into four categories:

 Locomotive Skills – running, jumping, dodging, skipping, hopping, bounding.

 Stability Skills- agility, balance, coordination, speed, change of direction
 Manipulative/Object Control Skills- throwing, kicking, striking, catching,
dribbling
 Awareness- spatial, kinaesthetic, and body awareness; rules

Appropriate Skill Development in Children

Given the way PE is delivered in schools, it can be difficult for parents to ensure their
children are being exposed to a sufficient range of movement skills.

Sometimes, it’s not easy to work out what physical literacy skills a child learns from a
each sport. The image below can help better explain this.

Role of Teachers in Physical Literacy

The role of the physical educator is to encourage and motivate children to be active.
There are many ways to do this, including promoting community activities, assigning
physical activity homework or home fun, showing an interest in the out of class
physically activity in which children participate, and leading by example.
 Six ways to help your child develop physical literacy

1. ROLE MODEL BEING ACTIVE

Children learn from what they see others do, so if you’re active they’ll see the behaviour
as normal. Chances are they’ll want to be active too.
2. PLAY WITH THEM
Create opportunities to be active or play as a family. The activities don’t have to be
elaborate. Something as simple as a walk to the park is great. If you’re stuck for ideas,
Active for Life and Canadian Sport for Life are excellent resources for parents and
caregivers.
3. EXPOSE CHILDREN TO A VARIETY OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES
Being active can mean playing sports such as soccer, hockey or basketball, but can also
mean skateboarding, yoga, cycling or hiking. The idea is to provide a variety of
opportunities and different ways to be active and children will choose to continue doing
what they enjoy.
4. FIND THE SPACE
Children need space to run around and be active. Maybe it’s in the house with furniture to
the side or maybe it‘s outside in the snow, but they need a safe space to build their skills.
5. WE ALL NEED ENCOURAGEMENT
Just like with reading and math, physical literacy will take time to develop. Be patient
and supportive while your child’s brain and muscles grow and provide opportunities for
practice.
6. BE AN ADVOCATE
Decisions about community design, community programs and even physical education in
schools can be supported by community residents. Advocate to your municipality for
more parks, sidewalks and spaces to be active. Speak with your child’s teacher, coach or
instructor about how they are supporting your child in becoming physically literate.

Health literacy involves the skills needed to get, understand and use information to make
better decisions for health. A number of studies worldwide have shown that health
literacy is vital in the improvement of health status of individuals as well as in the
effective implementation of health programs. Strong health literacy enables people to
develop the skills and confidence to make informed decisions about their health and the
health of their families, to be active partners in their care, to effectively navigate health-
care systems, and to advocate effectively to their political leaders and policy-makers.
Health literacy is important for everyone because, at some point in our lives, we all need
to be able to find, understand, and use health information and services.

Taking care of our health is part of everyday life, not just when we visit a doctor, clinic,
or hospital. Health literacy can help us prevent health problems and protect our health, as
well as better manage those problems and unexpected situations that happen.

Impact of health literacy

Health literacy impacts health outcomes in a multitude of ways.

1. High rates of health literacy in population groups benefit societies.

Health literate individuals participate more actively in economic prosperity, have
higher earnings and rates of employment, are more educated and informed,
contribute more to community activities, and enjoy better health and well-being.

2. Limited health literacy significantly affects health.

Limited health literacy is associated with less participation in health-promotion
and disease-detection activities, riskier health choices, more work accidents,
diminished management of chronic diseases, poor adherence to medication,
increased hospitalization and rehospitalization, increased morbidity, and premature
death.

3. Limited health literacy follows a social gradient and can reinforce existing
inequalities.
People with limited health literacy most often have lower levels of education, are
older adults, are migrants, and depend on various forms of pubic transfer
payments.

4. Building personal health literacy skills and abilities is a lifelong process.

No one is fully health literate – everyone at some point needs help in
understanding or acting on important health information.

5. Capacity and competence related to health literacy vary according to context,

culture and setting.
These depend on individual and system factors, including communication skills,
knowledge of health topics, culture, and the specific characteristics of health care,
public health and other relevant systems and settings where people obtain and use
health information.
 6. Responsiveness of health systems facilitates achieving positive health
outcomes.
The sufficiency of an individual’s level of health literacy depends on the
responsiveness of organizations in health and other sectors, and the demands
placed on the individual as a result of the complexity of the systems they must
navigate.

Because of its role as a key determinant of health, health literacy must be an area of focus
within political agendas.

Physical activity or exercise can improve your health and reduce the risk of developing
several diseases like type 2 diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease. Physical activity
and exercise can have immediate and long-term health benefits. Most importantly,
regular activity can improve your quality of life.

IMPORTANCE OF HEALTH LITERACY

 Health literacy can help us prevent health problems and protect our health, as well

as better manage those problems and unexpected situations that happen. They
aren't familiar with medical terms or how their bodies work.

 Strong health literacy enables people to develop the skills and confidence to make
informed decisions about their health and the health of their families, to be active
partners in their care, to effectively navigate health-care systems, and to advocate
effectively to their political leaders and policy-makers.

 By empowering people and creating favourable environments, stronger health

literacy and health literacy responsiveness drive forward equity in health outcomes
by making health care accessible to all, regardless of individual abilities.

SKILLS IN HEALTH LITERACY

Health Literacy Oral language skills are important as well. Patients need to articulate
their health concerns and describe their symptoms accurately. They need to ask pertinent
questions, and they need to understand spoken medical advice or treatment directions. In
an age of shared responsibility between physician and patient for health care, patients
need strong decision-making skills. With the development of the Internet as a source of
health information, health literacy may also include the ability to search the Internet and
evaluate Web sites.
Patients are often faced with complex information and treatment decisions. Patients
need to:

 Access health care services

 Analyse relative risks and benefits
 Calculate dosages
 Communicate with health care providers
 Evaluate information for credibility and quality
 Interpret test results
 Locate health information

In order to accomplish these tasks, individuals may need to be:

 Visually literate (able to understand graphs or other visual information)

 Computer literate (able to operate a computer)
 Information literate (able to obtain and apply relevant information)
 Numerically or computationally literate (able to calculate or reason numerically)

Role of Teachers in Health Literacy

Teacher health literacy may be defined as "the capacity of teachers to obtain, interpret,
and understand basic health information and services, with the competence to use such
information and services in ways that enhance the learning of health concepts and skills
by school students."

 Teachers are fundamental

to the success of school-
based health promotion
initiatives, given
 their roles in educating
children about health issues
and facilitating the
development of
 health literacy skills
through classroom and school
activities
 Teachers are fundamental
to the success of school-
based health promotion
initiatives, given
 their roles in educating
children about health issues
and facilitating the
development of
  health literacy skills
through classroom and school
activities
Teachers are fundamental to the success of school-based health promotions initiatives,
given their roles in educating children about health issues and facilitating the
development of health literacy skills through classroom and school activities.

Exploring Physical and Health Literacy

1. Making healthy choices and being physically active is really important.

2. It can help you make friends, do well in school and feel good about yourself.
3. But to be able to make healthy choices and become active, you have to learn health
and physical literacy. In physical literacy being active, it helps you to learn things like
how to dodge, hop, skip, jump, kick, overhand throw, catch and run. if you are good
at them, you can compete in the ultimate physical activity.
4. To be health literate, you have to learn basic thinking skills like communicating and
knowing what you’re feeling. Through these, you develop the ability to make healthy
choices, like eating well, making good decisions about your emotional wellbeing.
5. In learning the skills of health and physical literacy, you can have a strong sense of
well-being and become generally happier and healthier.

A children needs to be happy ,have fun being active and learn healthy choices. In order to
do this they need to learn the skills, basic skills they should understand and practice such
as running , kicking ,jumping, dodging and many more. If they able to learn this skills
they will eventually end up using these skills in sports and physical activity with
confidence in short they will become a physical literate individual. There are also skills
needed to make healthy choices , these skills are called thinking skills and doing skills
learning these skills will help you make healthy choices such us reading a book instead of
playing mobile games or eating more fruits and vegetables over candies. The ability to
make smart and healthy choices is what we called Health literacy. If an individual will
learn the Physcal and Health literacy they will participate in physical activities with
confidence and they will try more activities because they know they have the skills to be
good at it, they also have the skills for their health and well being which will lead them
having a happier and healthier life.
DO’s and DONT’s for STUDENTS AND TEACHERS

DO’s for Students

1. Get an exercise check-up - If you're about to begin an exercise programme, then it's
wise to visit your doctor and get the all-clear before you start. Your doctor will be able to
advise you on any precautions that you may need to take in order to maintain your health
or prevent injuries.

2. Build your fitness gradually - Once you begin, you will want to see results – and
quickly, too. But although fitness improvements are a great motivator by helping you to
progress further, it is extremely important that you don’t attempt to do too much too
soon.

3. Drink enough water - Drink 7 to 10 ounces of water every 10 to 20 minutes during

exercise. Drinking water after a workout helps in regulating your body temperature and
also makes up for the fluid loss because of sweating.

4. Eat well - Fresh foods are preferable. Think of foods on the perimeter of the grocery
store.

5. Get quality sleep - Sleep can help with the body’s healing. Sleep on the back or on
your side. Place a pillow under the head to support the neck in a neutral position and one
between the legs to support the lower back.

DON’TS for Students

1. Don’t forget to warm-up and cool-down - A warm-up prepares your body for
exercise’ and a cool-down returns it safely to its pre-exercise state. Both are a key part of
each training session and each need only take five to 10 minutes.

2. Over train - Over-training can take many forms – from trying to do too much in each
session to completing too many sessions. Symptoms of overtraining include lack of
motivation; a decline in performance; continual fatigue; susceptibility to illness and
infection; difficulty in sleeping; and general irritability.

3. Neglect rest -Rest is the most important component of any training program, because
it’s only when your body is at rest that it can adapt to the stress of training and rebuild
itself properly. Look to have at least one ‘no exercise’ day each week so that your body
and mind will be re-invigorated for subsequent training sessions. Miss out on rest and
you can become ill, get injured and progress more slowly.
4. Use repetitive rotation activities - Unloading the dishwasher, car, and washing
machine must be done with moving the feet to turn the body and a tight core.

5. Never sleep on your stomach, on the couch or in the recliner - No pretzel sleeping!
Your body needs a neutral position to rest properly.

DO’s for Teachers

1. Be a healthy role model. Model healthy behaviours to students by being active and
consuming healthy foods and beverages.

2. Create a physically active classroom. Incorporate movement into academic lessons

or add shorts bursts of activity (5-20 minutes) to regularly planned break times.

3. Include healthy eating and physical activity topics in health education. Teach
students about healthy eating and physical activity recommendations

4. Watch out for student’s weight concerns and stigma. Address and intervene on all
types of bullying, including weight discrimination and teasing about body shape or size.

5. Become familiar with your school’s health policies. Read your district’s local
wellness policy affects practices in your classroom.

DON’Ts for Teachers

1. Do not use physical activity as punishment. Do not punish students by forcing them
to participate in or with holding opportunities for physical activity.

2. Don’t forget children with disabilities.

3. Don’t do the same exercises all the time.

4. Don’t pressure the students to participate in physical activities.

5. Don’t start the activities without knowing the medical history of the students.

Practices across the Country (Trends)

A huge trend happening in physical education is centered on helping kids develop

the skills needed to live a healthy lifestyle and to maintain this lifestyle as an adult. Gone
are the days of just playing basketball, softball, and kickball for PE. Kids are learning
about fitness and what it means to be fit. They are experimenting with different types of
exercises such as yoga and Zumba and sports like soccer and lacrosse with the finding an
activity that they enjoy and will participate in long term.
 In many countries, health literacy research, practice, and policy have been moving
away from a focus only on medical care and health-care settings to a much broader
conceptualization. In this broader perspective, health literacy can be obtained and used
across many other settings (e.g., school, home, workplaces, government) towards
achieving health and wellness goals across the life-course for individuals, families, and
communities.

USING TECHNOLOGY TO PROMOTE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

Technology is a double-edged sword. Computers, for example, contribute to

sedentary leisure-time behaviors (e.g., playing seated computer games). On the other
hand, technology has been used to promote physical activity and change exercise
behavior. For years, pedometers, accelerometers, and heart rate monitors have been used
as motivational tools.

Pedometers count and monitor the number of steps taken throughout the day. Most
pedometers provide a fairly accurate count of steps taken during ambulatory activities
such as walking, jogging, and running. Estimates of the distance walked and caloric
expenditure are less accurate.

Accelerometers record body acceleration minute to minute, providing detailed

information about the frequency, duration, intensity, and patterns of movement. Counts
from accelerometers are used to estimate energy expenditure.

Heart rate monitors are used primarily to assess and monitor exercise intensity. These
devices are especially useful for monitoring exercise intensity of individuals in cardiac
rehabilitation programs and highly trained, competitive athletes.

Global positioning system (GPS) technology uses 24 satellites and ground stations as
reference points to calculate geographic locations and accurately track a specific activity.
For example, a portable GPS unit provides information about altitude, distance, time, and
average velocity while hiking.
REFERENCES

https://prezi.com/knsof_h5op-n/physical-fitness-and-health-literacy/

https://www.sportaus.gov.au/physical_literacy

https://www.cdc.gov/healthliteracy/learn/Understanding.html

https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/health-literacy/why-
health-literacy-is-important

https://www.alleducationschools.com/teaching-careers/physical-education-teacher/

https://www.who.int/school_youth_health/media/en/sch_skills4health_03.pdf

https://nnlm.gov/initiatives/topics/health-literacy

https://nnlm.gov/initiatives/topics/health-literacy#:~:text=Health%20Literacy%20is
%20defined%20in,to%20make%20appropriate%20health%20decisions.%22

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08924562.2019.1637315?
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https://www.wdgpublichealth.ca/blog/six-ways-help-your-child-develop-physical-
literacy-and-why-it-matters

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7068467/

https://us.humankinetics.com/blogs/excerpt/technology-can-boost-physical-activity-
promotion