Welcome!

This course is offered as part of Human Kinetics Teacher Professional Development. It is an online, self-paced experience with an instructor, and assignments can be completed at your convenience.

This course is worth 6 professional development hours, and you will receive a certificate upon successful completion. There is no graduate credit or CEU credit for this course.

We hope you will find this course valuable and enjoyable. If you have any questions, please email us at CE@hkusa.com.

Best of luck!

PE Central and Human Kinetics Professional Education

Audience

Secondary health and physical education teachers looking to introduce nutrition and healthy eating concepts into physical education through interactive, standards-aligned lessons.

Course Description

This course is designed to equip secondary health and physical education teachers with the tools to integrate nutrition and healthy eating concepts into physical education through interactive, standards-aligned lessons. Guided by SHAPE America’s 2024 National Health Education Standards, the course emphasizes basic nutrition concepts including macro- and micronutrients, hydration, portion sizes, reading food labels, and energy balance.

You’ll discover ready-to-use, standards-aligned lesson ideas, evidence-based nutrition guidance, and interactive strategies for teaching nutrition in both a classroom and traditional PE setting. With discussions on counterproductive “diet culture” concepts and body shaming, and, this course prepares instructors to teach about food and nutrition in a neutral way that supports student mental wellness.

Course Goals

By the end of this course, you will be able to do the following:

Explain the “why” behind integrating nutrition into Health and PE classes.
Understand adolescent nutritional trends, macro- and micronutrients, hydration, portion sizes, reading food labels, and energy balance.
Connect how nutrition education supports national standards in health education.
Implement ready-to-use, standards-aligned lesson ideas and interactive strategies for teaching nutrition in the traditional classroom setting.
>Include nutrition concepts in traditional PE setting, with physical activities like using fitness stations, relay races, and wellness challenges
Partner with school food services, science teachers, and others for hands-on, interdisciplinary learning opportunities.
Help students avoid factually incorrect, misleading, and often counterproductive “diet culture” and body shaming that may be encountered on social media and other places.
Teach food and nutrition in a neutral, inclusive, and evidence-based way that supports mental wellness.
Build custom nutrition-focused lessons.

Standards

Grade 6-8: Standard 1.8.1 Analyze ways to build upon strengths and assets to support individual and collective health and well-being.
Grade 6-8: Standard 1.8.2 Analyze how practices and behaviors support a variety of dimensions of wellness.
Grade 6-8: Standard 1.8.3 Analyze behaviors that reduce or prevent illnesses and injuries.
Grade 6-8: Standard 1.8.4 Analyze practices and behaviors that support health and well-being, including how to manage health conditions.
Grade 6-8: Standard 1.8.5 Analyze connections between health literacy and health outcomes.
Grade 6-8: Standard 1.8.6 Analyze how individual, interpersonal, community, and environmental factors impact health and well-being.
Grade 9-12: Standard 1.12.1 Apply ways to build upon strengths and assets to support individual and collective health and well-being.
Grade 9-12: Standard 1.12.2 Analyze the relationships between various dimensions of wellness as related to health outcomes.
Grade 9-12: Standard 1.12.3 Evaluate behaviors that reduce or prevent illnesses and injuries.
Grade 9-12: Standard 1.12.4 Evaluate practices and behaviors that support health and well-being, including how to manage health conditions.
Grade 9-12: Standard 1.12.5 Examine connections between individual health literacy, organizational health literacy, and health outcomes.
Grade 9-12: Standard 1.12.6 Analyze how individual, interpersonal, community, societal, and environmental factors are interrelated and impact health outcomes.
Grade 9-12: Standard 1.12.8 Examine how self-efficacy, perceived susceptibility, and perceived severity affect health behaviors.

Your Instructor

Dustin Yakoubian

Dustin is a full-time physical education teacher with over 15 years of teaching experience, both in the US and abroad. Dustin’s teaching experience focuses mostly on elementary (PreK-Grade 5) but also includes experience teaching and leading secondary students as well as adults. Dustin continues his work outside of the classroom as the author of The New PE Teacher’s Handbook (available in paperback and ebook), which offers guidance for both new and experienced PE teachers, covering job hunting, creating and elevating your PE program, as well as 80 ready-to-use lesson plans. Dustin has also written for various blogs on the topics of international education, physical education, and action sports. Other professional development courses through PE Central authored by Dustin include; Tinikling: Philippine Folk Dance for Fitness and Team Building, Add International Flair to PE with these 5 Modified Games and Bringing Tech & Library Sciences into PE