It’s the million-dollar question in health education: How do I motivate teenagers to care about their health? It is one of the biggest challenges we face as health educators. How can we help our students see the impact of their decisions today on their health in the future — and care about that impact enough to make a change?
The goal-setting skill set can be challenging to teach because many teenagers are either satisfied with their life, or they feel like nothing will ever change so what is the point in trying? We must strive to motivate and empower our students to create and maintain healthy habits in order to live a long, happy, healthy life.
Strategy One: Find Out What Matters to Your Students and Help Them Choose a Relevant Goal
In health education, the most important goal to set is the one that is most important to the student, not the teacher. You might know that one of your students has horrible sleeping habits, and you see how it negatively affects them in the classroom, so that’s what you think they should set a goal around. It is so obvious to you that if they work on getting more sleep they will be happier and more successful at school.
However, the student would rather stay up on their phone or play video games than get eight hours of sleep. It’s just not important to them (right now) to improve their sleep habits. As health educators, we have to accept that and help them find a goal that truly matters to them, or else they will not work toward it, and the whole thing was a waste of time.
Accepting that what is important to us might not be important to our students is tough, but we have to meet them where they are at. Challenge yourself to get to know each of your students well enough to help them choose a goal that really matters to them.
Strategy Two: Empower Your Students by Focusing on Habits They Can Control
It is common for students to lack confidence and feel like they do not have control of their life. This is true to an extent, but middle school and high school students especially should be taking responsibility for their health in ways that they can.
For example, they can control whether they brush their teeth twice a day or not. As long as the supplies are available, their daily oral health is in their control. On the other hand, they cannot control the food that they consume — not completely. They are limited to the options their parents/guardians provide. The nutrient density of their meals at home depends greatly on the food that is available, the culture in the home around meals, parent work schedules, knowledge and ability around preparing meals, etc.
We want to empower our students by focusing on habits that are in their control. Sleep, physical activity, hygiene practices, and screen time are great areas to emphasize.
Strategy Three: Hype Your Students up by Celebrating Past Success
Find out something that each student has accomplished in the past, no matter how small, to help boost their confidence around the goal they are setting in health class. This may take a while with some of your students, but don’t give up!
Every one of your students has done hard things. You just might need to help them realize that it was their effort that enabled them to do the hard thing and that they are capable of challenging themselves and being successful.
Maybe it was something they did in school, like passing a test they studied hard for, or completing a task in physical education class that they were proud of. Perhaps it has nothing to do with school, but they gathered the courage to have a tough conversation with someone they care about, or they earned enough money to buy something they really wanted. Whatever it was, it’s an achievement and they might need help seeing it that way.
Boosting pride in past accomplishments can motivate students to continue to challenge themselves.
Strategy Four: Make Connections Between Daily Habits and Long-Term Health
This is a great opportunity to include an at-home assignment involving family members. You could come up with questions as a class or students could brainstorm their own questions to ask family members about health-related habits.
This activity is beneficial in so many ways. It not only shows parents/family members what their student is learning about in health class, but, more importantly, sparks conversation within the household around healthy and risky habits and behaviors — and the long-term consequences of them, both positive and negative.
When students are back in class with you after having these conversations, you can reflect as a group or individually. Students should be thinking about what type of role models they have in their lives and what they want their own lives to be like when they are the age of the person/people they interviewed.
The idea is that your students hear first-hand accounts from people they care about, reflecting on their life choices related to their health. Through this assignment, your students will see that they have the power to make health-enhancing choices and prevent certain health problems.
The Importance of Helping Students Establish Healthy Habits
There is a saying on the bulletin board in my classroom that will be there until I retire. It says, “Your Choices Become Your Habits and Your Habits Become Your Lifestyle.”
We all want our students to lead health-conscious lifestyles. We want them to consider consequences before acting, and we want them to believe and understand the habits they are establishing now can have a major effect on their future, positive or negative.
As health educators we have a very limited amount of time with our students. For most of them, it will be the last time they are in a structured health education class. We must strive to instill that health-conscious lifestyle by helping them create and maintain healthy habits. The goal-setting skill set is a great way to help students establish healthy habits and continually improve their health.
Additional Resources
- Health Literacy Month Resources
- National Health Education Standards Teacher Resources
- Health Education Guidance Documents
Kristen Allen
Kristen Allen, MPH, is a high school health teacher in Maine and an adjunct instructor in the School Health Program at the University of Maine at Farmington. She has presented at various conferences on skills-based health education and teacher wellness. Kristen is the 2025 SHAPE America Eastern District Health Education Teacher of the Year. She can be reached at kallen@rsu10.org.
