Product Description: The most reliable and widely used personal health text, Core Concepts in Health utilizes the theme of personal responsibility to teach and motivate students about health and wellness. The Tenth Edition Update provides current, accurate, scientifically based information about a wealth of health and wellness topics and issues. The Brief edition, an affordable alternative to larger health texts, includes a built-in study guide that allows students to test their knowledge of health-related issues and assess their level of wellness.
Padded and overpriced As a student in a City University of New York school, I was required to take a course in Health Education. The course and the textbook are both primarily the reiteration of common sense. At least that's what I thought. I was surprised to find that so many of my classmates really did not know this information. So I suppose the course and the book are necessary after all. Like virtually all textbooks these days, there is a great deal of propaganda. Even though I agree with most of the propaganda, ideally a textbook would not be trying to push a social agenda. In that respect the book not only fails, but some people could consider it inflammatory. Those who select textbooks should be aware of the values of their particular community. I would suggest looking at the book carefully and vetting it with supervisors as well as compare it to competitors. I'm not an authority on these things, I'm just a mature student who has returned to college after a 40-year hiatus. I've lived in the real world. I haven't been cloistered in academe all my life. While it may not raise an eyebrow in New York City, it could possibly upset some people in rural or conservative areas.
Although I think it's a visually attractive book with a plethora of nice color photographs, diagrams, and drawings, my major gripe against this book is that it is three times as large and three times as expensive as it ought to be. Virtually EVERYTHING in the book is printed three times. Information will appear in the text. Then there will be a sidebar story that repeats the information WORD FOR WORD. Then on top of that, the information will be repeated again in slightly altered form (say, bullet points) as an end-of-chapter summary. That's overkill. The book is padded, over-priced, and weighs too much.
Health & Wellness Textbook This book was missing all of the study guide sheets from the back. It was received in a timely manner. Price was decent, just wished the seller would have stated missing pages.
The best college level health education book on the market Core Concepts in Health by Paul Insel and Walton Roth is, quite simply, the best university-level health education textbook on the market. It is available in both brief and expanded editions. I used this book when I taught health education at Stanford in the 1980s and it just keeps getting better and better. I also used it internationally when I taught at the Moscow State Pedagogical University in Russia, also with great success.
The book covers all the key aspects of health, with a special focus on university students. It is well designed and colorful with numerous photographs and explanatory notes. In addition to the textbook there are a number of aids for the teacher, including the Course Integrator Guide which provides learning objectives, classroom activities, internet resources, and other teaching tools. More than 150 transparency masters and handouts are also provided as well as a Test Bank of some 2000 questions. Finally, a set of Wellness Worksheets, which is a student learning aid, is also provided.
The preface of the book includes an outline of the format of the book, entitled "A Guided Tour of Core Concepts in Health." Here both the student and the teacher can get a good understanding of how to use the book to maximum effectiveness. An important aspect of this guide (and the book) is the extent to which the authors focus on behavior change, providing both specific behavior change plans for particular areas of wellness and "Take Charge" boxes which give practical advice to apply the information from the text to the student's own life.
In teaching Core Concepts an instructor can follow the lessons as outlined in the book or take an approach that is more suited to the needs and interests of the students. For example, I began with the first chapter, "Taking Charge of Your Health" because I believe that the most important thing to teach students is that they are the person most responsible for their health, that by their own behaviors they will largely determine their health. I then moved to chapter 10 (Exercise for Health and Fitness) because my course included an exercise component as well as a lecture class. I followed with Chapter 9 (Nutrition Basics) and chapter 3 (psychological health) because I believe that these three topics (exercise, diet and stress management) make up the core of healthy living. The next topic I chose is chapter 4 which has to do with Intimate Relationships and Communication because this issue is particularly important to university students. At Stanford cigarette smoking was not a problem, while alcohol use was, thus I covered these topics accordingly. If I were teaching there now I would also put Environmental Health high on the list. Weight Management can be included in the dietary component. Finally chronic diseases, such as heart disease and cancer are important topics because young people need to realize that these diseases begin early in life. Depending on time, other topics can be covered as well. For example, The Use and Abuse of Psychoactive Drugs may be a topic of interest and concern on some campuses.
Geat Book! This book has an easy approach to learning the core concepts presented in this book.
Great review of general concepts I used this book to study for the Here's to Your Health DANTE exam. It was an excellent study guide and hit on each and every subject on the test. The practice tests in the back of the book were very helpful. I would recommend this text to anyone studying for a proficiency exam.
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