Update: BJU no longer offers a health program. These books are now out of print.

Unlike most offerings from BJU, their health curriculum is refreshingly concise. It covers all of middle and high school with a single student text and teacher’s edition, and doesn’t waste time with lots of busy-work and superfluous activities. The text is colorful and reasonably engaging, and offers lots of good advice about a healthy lifestyle.

How Does This Work?

There are two units contained in the single student text. Unit one is for middle school (grades 7-9) and unit two covers high school (grades 10-12). There is a separate test book (and accompanying test answer key) for each unit, and a single teacher’s edition for both units. Each unit provides one semester’s worth of work (18 weeks), though you could stretch it over an entire year if you wanted or needed.

The teacher’s edition contains each student page in reduced black-and-white format, answers to all in-text questions, and extra notes for in-class presentation. There isn’t any teacher support beyond this book, but it’s comprehensive enough you shouldn’t need more. Tests are a typical blend of matching, multiple choice, short answer and essay questions, and besides the in-text questions are the only written work for the course.

The student text is, of course, the core of the program, and your student could use it independently of the teacher’s edition. While some of the information is relegated to unit two on an age-appropriate basis, for the most part unit one is basic, foundational material while unit two is more specific and in-depth. Topics include exercise, nutrition, hygiene, drugs and alcohol, and optional sex education information.

Our Honest Opinion:

This isn’t the most thorough health program, but for adolescent students it covers all the basics. You may want to supplement the sex education aspect since they devote very little attention to it. Also, instead of promoting a healthy view of alcohol consumption they present all alcoholic beverages as the root of much of the world’s evil and suffering. Doctors and modern medicine are considered the gold standard of medicine, with alternative forms of healing and health maintenance not even referenced.Other than that, this is a pretty standard health course for middle and high school students.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he is a husband and father, teaches adult Sunday school in his Presbyterian congregation, and likes weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur.Read more of his reviews here.