The Impact of Distance Learning on the Physical Health of Elementary Students in

the City of Santo Tomas

Chapter II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Conceptual Literature

The COVID-19 pandemic, known as SARS-COV-2, that put the world

upsidedown was firstly recorded on Wuhan Province, China dated 31 December 2019.

Agriculture, economy, business and commerce, industrials, health, and even education

rolled to its downward effects that lead the countries exhausted, devastated, and out-

numbered. In the 452nd lockdown (and counting) of the Republic of the Philippines,

health services and the economic sector are still battling for the priorities of the

government, other sectors are now excluded in the race due to lack of income and blown

debts in different banks in the world of the country. Education is one of the sectors in

which the difficulties are showed and preparedness is unsuccessful because of the high

percentage of non-enrolled students for the School Year 2020-2021. The Department of

Education (DepEd) adopted modular and online distance learning to continue the field of

education to new normal to make advancement and seems that the education process of

the department is completely rolled out successfully but not suitable for all Filipino

students. Enrolled students faced several hindrances and circumstances in taking the new

form of education. Holistic care or simply holistic health is the major concern of the

globe at this particular time. Communities are struggling with how they move and
interact in the outside world while following health and safety protocols. Holistic health

dictates the overall living of an individual at all costs and students are included in this

concern. Modular and online distance learning in the Philippines is one of the major

problems for not just the students but also the parents. The advantages of attending this

process are more beneficial in time management and health security but this education

system is hiding various bad effects in the students which affecting their daily living and

overall performances. Lack of socialization, lack of productivity, lesser physical

activities, and boredom are the disadvantages that the students are facing right now and

can cause unnecessary behaviors like harassment, suicide, overthinking, and bullying.

Public High School and College students are also adopting these rules of new normal in

the field of education while compromising their health mostly mentally and physically.

These students are experiencing exhaustion, stress, depression, blurred eyesight, trauma,

headaches, eyestrains, and even loss of confidence and self-esteem which may also

damage their social and spiritual health in the future. They’re considered young adults

and still experiencing these illnesses which may jump to the scenario that our elementary

learners will also experience this kind of issues and maybe more harsh compare to the

elders. Elementary students are more childish, weak, and less confident in front of others,

they’re also prone to severe headaches and blurred eyesight due to contact with electronic

gadgets and computers which been used during their respective classes. Physical health

for these students is now a serious case because of the unnatural way in how they’re

adopting the environment while they’re still learning and developing their skills. The

longer days that the traditional face-to-face classes are held due to the pandemic, the

more young learners will suffer in nearsightedness, headaches and head injuries, lack of
growth, obesity due to unproductivity, tardiness, laziness, trauma, poor socialization, lack

of vitamins and minerals from the sun, and loss of self-confidence. These problems

destroyed our education system and affecting the learners most likely the young students

that may take several years to treat if they’re always live with it without any prior

consultation, actions, and responses from the major sector holders.

These instances in the field of education are a problem if it is not given any

concerns which will start the collapse of the students for the next school year and lead to

economic recession and major national problems. Students would not take schools

anymore because of the physical trauma they’ve got in the current school year and will

wait until the situation come back to normal living like we’re used to be. Scenarios may

vary for the elementary students because not all the students have the same perspective in

adopting this new normal, others may survive it and continue their learnings but others

may not. The City Government of Santo Tomas is continuing in assessing the needs and

problems of the students especially the indigent sectors that have no full access to data

connection and electronic gadgets for modular learning.

Related Studies

Megan Faletra (2020), a global health dietitian pointed and founder of “The Well

Essentials” and Taylor Holland (2018), a freelance writer in healthcare and technology,

pointed out the importance of five (5) holistic health functions in creating a stable and

healthy living of an individual. Western and Eastern medicines are the modern solutions

to different health problems of the world but the machinery of modern medicines

compromising the holistic health of the patients which are needed the most at this time.

Holistic health care is connected to maintain its balance and if one aspect takes a problem

then it will affect the others. According to Nayma Nishat (theworldbook.org), a health

fitness researcher, physical health is the well-being of the body for the proper function of

systems of organisms inside. It is the gateway of the other health systems and serves as a

basis on how s/he interprets him/herself and reacts to a particular situation. Physical

health is mostly connected to a person’s mentality, once the individual's physical habits

gone wrong, it will affect his/her thinking and will trigger other health problems like

depression and anxiety. Physical health problems may cause damage to emotional and

mental health and sooner the person’s social and spiritual entities. These health problems

showed up especially in the amidst of COVID-19 Pandemic where everybody is stagnant

in their respective houses, activities are limited and health security is a must.

“Sitting is more dangerous than smoking, kills more people than HIV, and is

more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death.”, Dr. James

Levine, Director of Mayo Clinic-Arizona State University. This statement by Dr. Levine

came from the data of the World Health Organization where heart disease, cancer, and

chronic respiratory disease are the three major causes of deaths caused by physical health
problems in 2016. These diseases are alarming in the 21st century, mental health problems

seem to be the center of attraction but these mental problems are just the effects of

physical problems we’re experiencing. From March 2020, millions are affected by the

pandemic, and physical activities are mostly hit by it; schooling, jobs, industries, and

health care systems are paralyzed and many of us suffered death due to illness, heart

attack, and respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Students and workers are stunned in

their traditional way of living and hard to cope-p with the new environment and created

more sophisticated circumstances around the globe.

According to World Economic Forum (weforum.org), the COVID-19 pandemic

shut down schools across the globe and take billions of students out of classrooms. As a

result, the form of education changed dramatically utilizing digital and online platforms.

Physical classes are now prohibited until the world is cured and ready to restart, unless

the new modality of learning is adopted and use as default learning systems. As online

classes are emerging in regions, health problems are growing too, and it will be a

catastrophic event if it’s not prioritized. Many have experienced a loss of eyesight,

hearing loss, headaches, brain tumors, obesity, and lack of Vitamin D Here in the

Philippines, modular distance and blended learning are used to reach other students who

can’t avail of internet connection and gadgets in learning. Many of the Filipino students

didn’t reach the end of the school year due to personal problems and to those who still

studying, they experienced different hindrances for both physical and mental aspects.

Students in higher and lower education are included in the problem where they are prone

to suicidal attempts and lack of growth due to unnatural ways of developing and

improving their hidden skills. The overall studies used the phenomenological approach
of qualitative research which aims to gather information about the experiences of the

participants in the online studies. Their study revealed that physical problems may lead to

mental problems and social trauma of the students specifically in elementary if the online

learning modality and modular distance learning in the Philippines continues to roll into

the future.

In general, the negative impact of modular distance learning on our dear

elementary students are always visible and will possibly contribute to the severe problem

of the country, solutions can be suggested but the concern is how can we adopt these

solutions with the modern problems to help our students in different levels. This study is

calling the attention of other researchers and the government to take action and respond

to these modern problems we are facing, the effects may take to other generations and

will cause social imbalance and impaired to the students. This will also serve as a call to

the students who experience physical problems to open up to their parents or teachers to

quickly assess the possible cause and effect of the situation. Our health is important to

continue and needed to support ourselves in these times, this topic encourages the

Filipinos to take the situation seriously and relevant to the situation of others. Mental

health is now a problem, so the physical circumstances that cause the mental breakdown

is now a problem too. Always remember that physical and mental are correlated to each

other and one damage can affect both of the systems. Holistic Health matters; for youth,

teenagers, adults, and seniors are included. These are the life of everyone and needed to

treat properly for the body to function properly. Physical Care is a must and this will not

end here because this will be the gateway on how to prevent physical damages to the

student soon and prevent its enormous effects on the physical well-being of others.
Synthesis

Our current situation under the COVID-19 Pandemic changed the nation, health,

education, gender, economy, and future generations. The down lines of the pandemic

reached the isolated communities in the Philippines which worsen the situations across

the country and worldwide. Every step in preventing the pandemic and utilizing limited

supplies in all sectors is a gamble just to sustain the country’s stand against the pandemic

and avoiding its collapse soon. The government of the Republic of the Philippines is

setting guidelines to improve our health care system and adopts the ways of emerged

countries to create a new way of economic progress and people’s initiative. One of the

prior sectors affected by this pandemic is education which now causing damages and

contributing to the problems of the health care system in the Philippines. Suicidal cases

are mentioned in different studies and analysis of different organization and countries,

mental health is now a major concern but the physical health problems which is the main

cause of this mental concern are the who is abandoned and can’t take actions from the

people.

The current study is relevant to the World Economic Forum which purposely

focusing on the displacement of students in traditional classes due to the pandemic

(weforum.org). The organization points out the severe negative effects of continuous

online learning on the students and how it would change the future of learning. Hence,

World Economic Forum didn’t discuss the negative physical effects on our students. This

research intends to analyze and identify those problems to use in future studies and open

the issues to the world and give them time to solve. World Economic Forum and this

research is similarly looking at the negatives in the online learning modality which will
bring our generation to an end and as much as possible is must stop or regulate the use of

online modality. This research focuses on the heath-related problems of modular and

online schooling which compromising the alarming down rate of holistic health. It shows

the ups and downs of the new normal of studying and searching for alternatives or ways

to make this field of education better in the holistic health of the students if this new

normal is adopted. World Economic Forum is way different from this research where

they’re focusing on the downlines of this new normal and finding ways on how to back

the situation in traditional classes, informing and giving such warnings to all about the

long-term effects of this modality.

This short synthesis and the whole research set to give information and specific

findings on how this online modality affects the students in physical aspects. Students

may use this as a reference in finding legible concerns about their problems in online

learning which may help future researchers in taking action to the issues.