There remains the need to deliver effective prevention and health promotion interventions to all adolescents, to ensure that they have long, productive, and healthy lives. The public can play a very important role to ensure the health, safety, security, and well- being of adolescents. For example, health providers and educators can and should provide adolescents with the knowledge and skills they require to protect themselves from a wide range of public health problems, including STDs, HIV, alcohol and other drug abuse, and violence. Finally, the media can play a very important role by reinforcing prevention and health promotion messages. Children needs health monitoring and care dluring the elementary and middle school years.
Puberty begins earlier than most parents and many health professionals realize.
Once the well-baby visits of infancy and toddlerhood are over and a full round of immunizations has been completed, most parents seldom take their children to the doctor. As a result, parents lack the kind of information and guidance they need to help them fully understand and appreciate the developmental changes ex- perienced by the prepubescent child. Middle childhood is also a good time to address or prevent obesity and eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia. Parents, health professionals, and teachers can introduce or reinforce the importance of regular exercise and a good diet. They are also often in a unique position to identify children and adolescents who are at high risk for developing an eating disorder before they develop such problems and to ensure that children and adolescents who do have an eating disorder know how to get help.