Summary of healthy lifestyle activities for teenagers

A total of 1,217 school students aged 12-18 were covered, and 82% of the participants had at least one positive change in the three core health behaviors of daily routine, diet, and exercise. In practice, the most prominent counter-intuitive conclusion is that compared to students' lack of self-control, "one-size-fits-all standardized health requirements" are the biggest obstacle to implementation.

Don't tell me, this time we deliberately did not hold the traditional lecture of "lecturing for 2 hours on stage and sleeping in the audience". Instead, we cooperated with the school community to create a lot of down-to-earth gameplay: such as "health check-in to exchange for peripherals". As long as you save 10 valid check-ins, you can exchange them for sports bracelets and customized canvas bags with the school logo printed on them. The enthusiasm of students to participate was more than twice as high as we expected.； There is also a "Snack Traffic Light" display stand at the school gate. All commonly sold spicy strips, sparkling water, and baked bread are marked with red, yellow, and green grades. The side notes clearly indicate that "eating red snacks more than three times a week may affect calcium absorption" and "do not eat more than 1 bag of yellow snacks at a time." It doesn't make sense, but it is surrounded by students picking snacks every day. There was a boy who was a sophomore in high school who used to drink at least two bottles of iced Coke every day, and his teeth had developed white spots of demineralization. The next day after seeing the display rack, he changed his water glass to a cold drink with lemon slices. Later, he took the initiative to post our popular science poster on his class's blackboard.

The event had just entered its second week when it encountered quite a controversy. A parent of a senior high school student came to the school to find us and said in a very aggressive tone: "My child can only sleep 6 hours a day, but you still require 8 hours of sleep. Doesn't this delay him from completing his exams for college?" ”In fact, this is also an issue that has been debated in the health academic community for a long time: For young people who are under great academic pressure, where should the health priority be placed? One school is the "health priority theory", which believes that no matter how busy you are with studies, 8 hours of sleep and 1 hour of exercise are the bottom line. Otherwise, in the long run, your physical fitness will collapse and it will be useless to get into a good university. ； The other school is the "stage adaptation theory", which believes that the needs of different age groups are different. There is no need to impose unified standards for special stages such as the third year of high school. It is better to provide some lightweight solutions that adapt to their rhythm. We did not force ourselves at that time. We adjusted the activity rules for the senior three group on the same day, canceling the hard requirements for sleep duration and exercise duration, and replaced them with small reminders such as "stand at the desk for 40 minutes and do shoulder and neck relaxation exercises for 2 minutes" and "do not eat iced milk tea and fried food at the same time before the exam." Later, the parent specially sent us a WeChat message, saying that the child had less headaches recently after sitting at the desk for a long time, and his condition in the last mock test was much better than before.

To be honest, I visited 6 schools this time, and the one that touched me the most was a junior high school girl from a suburban middle school. Her BMI (what is commonly known as body mass index) is over 28. She used to hide under a tree during physical education classes, fearing that her classmates would laugh at her if she couldn't run. Our exercise check-in this time did not require running or jumping. Walking, planting flowers, and even mopping the floor at home were all considered valid hours. She would take a detour for 20 minutes to go home after school every day. She lost 4 pounds in a month. This time she also took the initiative to sign up for the fun relay event in the school sports meeting. I still remember the way she stood on the starting line and smiled while holding the baton.

Of course, the shortcomings of this event are also quite obvious: the participation rate of suburban and rural schools is 21% lower than that of urban schools. Many rural children have to help their families with farm work and take care of younger siblings after school, and cannot spare any extra time to participate in the check-in.； Almost 15% of the students did not participate in the whole process. Most of them were children who were seriously addicted to mobile games. We later talked to a few children and found that it was not that they did not want to be healthy, but that they felt that "exercise and going to bed early are not as interesting as playing games." In the future, we are also thinking about whether we can come up with some solutions that combine with their interests, such as cooperating with game manufacturers to launch a mechanism of "exerting 10 minutes of exercise for 30 minutes of game time", which is more effective than blocking them from playing.

In general, this event did not turn out to be the fairy tale of "everyone develops perfect health habits" as everyone imagined, but we have figured out the core logic: providing health guidance to teenagers is never about giving them a bunch of cold rules of "you are not allowed to do this, you must do that", but to stand in their perspective and give them options that are within their reach and willing to choose. After all, a healthy lifestyle should never be anti-human, right?