[Consideration of health in German (sports) curricula].

Background: In Germany, health is not a subject in general schooling, yet school education is supposed to contribute to health promotion. The interpretation of this objective ranges from a health-promoting effect through exercise to the claim of a reflexive understanding of health that can be described by the construct of health literacy (HL).

Objective and methods: In order to examine the extent to which a reflexive understanding of health is applied in school education in Germany according to the HL approach, 33 currently valid curricula of general education schools in Germany are evaluated by content analysis.

Results: In particular, biology and physical education classes from the primary level onward aim to promote health-related competencies. The analysis shows that a sport motoric and, thus, exercise-oriented promotion of HL dominates in physical education. Furthermore, only in a few federal states is physical education intended to stimulate the understanding, evaluation, communication, and decision-making concerning these contents.

Conclusion: It remains unclear whether health-related content should be the focus of instruction or whether the health reference merely serves as a label. Nevertheless, physical education especially has the potential to sensitize adolescents early and comprehensively to health-related topics.