When you hear "health education," it probably conjures up old memories of cursory lessons on puberty or maybe sex education. Perhaps you had some nutrition lessons here and there.

But comprehensive health education is not only so much more than that; it is vital to a child's overall well-being. Because kids spend so much of their time in school, schools are a key place to holistically promote and improve the mental and physical health of students and set them up for a bright future. Health education sets kids up with the skills and habits they need to be productive, thriving adults.

I remember that years ago, when Louis Galea was Education Minister and a National Minimum Curriculum was being discussed after much consultation, among the many objectives intended to break a new dawn in the field of Maltese education were education on human sexuality and wise choices in the field of health.

In 2005, Marianne Massa, a principal health promotion officer at the Health Promotion Department, stated that the role of the school health service must move in a health promotion direction, beyond its responsibility for providing clinical services. This would require changes in the professional education and training of the school health team, as well as expanding the health professions involved. Finally, there must be a change of attitude and organisation in the school health service that refocuses on the total needs of the child as a whole person.

The whole idea is to enable schools to become healthier places by aiming to integrate health promotion into every aspect of the curriculum, introduce healthy programmes and practices into schools' daily routines, improve working conditions, and foster better relations both within the schools and between them and their local communities. All that looked and sounded great on paper, but, in reality, is its implementation being done at its best? Can further improvements be made?

Health education was not given much importance earlier and was underestimated. But with increased health awareness, people learned the importance of health education at home, in school, and in communities. Before a child approaches puberty and adolescence, they should be aware of various healthy and risky behaviours. If they make inappropriate decisions, it might prove fatal and even lead to death.

In its simplicity, health education should provide information about the human body and the factors that promote or damage health. Parents are always more concerned about their children's academic education, including reading, writing and learning. A comprehensive health education programme should play a crucial role in a child's education, from kindergarten to high school. Health education should teach children about physical, mental, social and psychological health. In other words, their overall well-being helps students make healthy choices and avoid risky behaviours. Health education training should mainly focus on preserving health, avoiding illnesses and training students to make healthier decisions in their lives.

Health education provides general knowledge for health promotion and disease prevention. In addition, it inspires adolescents to acquire healthy beliefs and knowledge and adopt healthy lifestyle choices. Health education includes health services, physical education, psychological services, nutrition and food programmes, health promotion, a healthy environment and disease prevention.

So what should be the goal of teaching health education? The growing age of children is sensitive in terms of adopting healthy behaviour. This behaviour has lifelong consequences and can easily turn fatal or even lead to death if inappropriate decisions and bad choices are negligently permitted to be made by children and adolescents. Such negative decisions and choices can take the form of alcohol consumption, tobacco and drug abuse, deviant sexual behaviours and other unhealthy choices.

It is said that children should be educated two years before the start of these behaviours. The right age is when they are seven to eight years old. Children should be taught what is right for them and which behaviours can result in harmful consequences. Positive health behaviours should be cultivated in them in the early years of childhood. It is not enough to have exercise and good nutrition as part of the daily routine to live a healthy life.

We might have school health programmes purporting to be strategies to prevent health and social issues, but better coordination and revisited priorities are needed. A well-designed and well-followed school health programme influences multiple health outcomes. School health programmes were initiated to shift focus on priority behaviours that affect health and learning. Yet, various health behaviours account for the high morbidity and mortality rates in children. A child's health-deteriorating or health-enhancing behaviour depends on the support system surrounding them, including friends, family, and the community.

A complete set of programmes is needed to run the health programme effectively. Programmes should be led in a coordinated manner. Roles and responsibilities should be evenly distributed among school health coordinators, advisory councils, interdisciplinary committees, teams and other networks. A joint health programme reduces ambiguity and ensures the successful completion of the programme. Another key to effective programming is to upgrade staff knowledge. Unfortunately, many teachers received their training a long time ago, when problems were different from today. Thus, continuous upgrading is required to meet the demands and difficulties children face.

There has to be a marriage between health and education. You cannot learn if your mind is full of unhealthy images from daily life and confusion about right and wrong.