Moral Health

In class for the past couple of weeks, we have been learning about health. We learned about physical, emotional, social, mental, and moral health. We performed activities that boosted our physical and emotional health level, mainly by being active. We rolled around on the floor of the classroom, tried mock-therapy sessions, and mediated, to name a few. But out of all the stuff we learned about, moral health seemed to strike a nerve with me. With physical and emotional health, there aren’t many contradictions, but when it comes to someone’s morals, the rules seem to bend at times. Ever since we were little, we were taught to have good morals, (i.e, be respectful to elders, always tell the truth, help out others), but as we get older we see that there are major contradictions to these rules. For example, we are always told to tell the truth, but what if it hurts someone in that process? If a friend asks if she looks fat in a pair of jeans, should you tell her the truth and say yes or lie to protect her feelings? We often find that by protecting someone from the truth, we are being a good person. Honestly, who wants to hurt their friends or someone close to them? And when it comes to helping others, we are always told to donate to charities to help the less fortunate people. And let’s say we donate, and donate, and donate, but when exactly can we stop donating? When can we finally feel that our job is done, and we helped save someone’s life? Or let’s say we didn’t donate, does that mean we are a bad person? What if you don’t have the money to donate? If you donate, you have good morals, but if you don’t, you’re not a good person. Does that seem fair? Moral health has rules, but those rules are easily broken. As we get older, we find that the rules that we were taught as a child don’t apply anymore. We find that sometimes bending the rules can actually save someone in a certain situation, so we tell a tiny white lie. After all, it’s not hurting anyone, correct? The definition of the word moral is “relating to, or capable of making the distinction between right and wrong” (http://home.sprynet.com/~eagreen/moral.htm) Moral health is when people are able to tell the difference between what is right and what is wrong, and know how it affects their mental health. Basically, moral health is all in one’s head. It deals with the psychological part of the brain, because if someone did something wrong that defied their morals, it would be on their conscience for a long time. But if someone did something good, it would also be on their conscience, but they would feel pride from it. Moral health doesn’t affect our physical body as much as it affects our mind.

After we finished this unit, I found that I realized a lot of things about myself that I never knew before. During the unit we found that we aren’t physically or emotionally healthy in school because we are constantly being forced to sit in desks and take notes. But when we are allowed to step out and just have fun, for how long or short it will be, it relaxes us more. Before learning this, I hated school, and hated me contained in classrooms for six hours. But after this unit, I realized I was fine with being contained, as long as I was able to step out and relax also. During lunch I would notice how my emotional level raised because I was out being active. Also before this unit, I wasn’t focused a lot on my health. I always tried to be healthy and fit, but I never really cared too much. But after this unit, I realized health can affect us in a lot more ways than one. By being physical, we are helping our bodies stay healthy, while also boosting our emotional and mental levels by being active. I also began to change my diet. I use to eat junk food a lot, but now I switched my diet to eating more salad and eating less chocolate and chips. I haven’t eaten any junk food in a long time, and even if I do it’s just ice cream or sweets. I haven’t touched a bag of chips or chocolate, eating salad or apples instead. I realized that being healthy isn’t hard at all; you need to know the consequences to your actions. By being healthy, I have more energy and I feel good about myself. Along with eating the right food, I try to work out more often, and walk everywhere instead of taking the train. Just today, me and my friends walked all over Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and just being active made me feel so happy. I didn’t use any mode of transportation besides my legs. Along with improving my own health, I have been telling my friends and family about how they can improve their health also. In my household, we try to limit our junk food intake, instead having apples at least every other night after dinner to cleanse our bodies. And when I go out to lunch with my friends, I reach for the healthier stuff, such as salad. Just changing my diet in little ways can also go a long way in my future. Our health is so important, and more people need to realize that. In our current nation, over half of the teenagers in America are obese or overweight. They need to realize that they can’t be unhealthy, especially because it affects their adult bodies in the future.