Health Class

I met with N's health teacher last Wednesday. She provided worksheets for a 5-day portion of the curriculum, which included:

1) Fitness - flexibility, strength, endurance, BMI, pulse, workout principles.
2) Food Pyramid - a discussion of the nutrients and important aspects of all portions of all food groups.
3) Calories - how many do you need, burning calories, creating a menu within a calorie range, ideal percent of fat in a diet.
4) Nutrition - create menu using pyramid, self assessment profile that uses emoticon to asses amounts in each area including fat, oils, cholesterol, sodium; determining exercise needed; caloric intake and expenditure summary;
5) Eating Disorders - anorexia, bulimia, obesity, movie (Little Miss Perfect).

She was willing to excuse N from the entire unit.

I'm so glad that I met with her. I (and N) could see potential triggers on most of the days. I suspect that he would be fine on day 2 -- but that's borderline. And would we want him to be there for just one day of the unit anyway? N really wanted to be there for the discussion on day 5, but I can see huge issues with that! On day 5, not only do they discuss "potential problems" from being overweight, but the bulimia discussion includes "other" methods of losing weight like laxatives, etc. I've never seen the movie, but suspect that it wouldn't be healthy for N to indulge in seeing someone else's methods of losing weight.

N was concerned about his "smart" friends figuring out that he was missing for this whole unit (yet he was unconcerned about making comments during the anorexia discussion - go figure). We'll be meeting with his new school counselor this week to determine if she can pull him out (thus N can state that the counselor "made" him leave). I think she'll be willing.

I've known this class was coming and would be an issue. Hopefully we can handle this in the best way possible.