Chapter 8 Summaries
- Part One: Health Factors
Health factors vary from point to point, depending on the lives that people are living. Everything from education to environment impacts our health. However, there is no specific factor which dictates others. Health behaviors associated with the provision of alcohol rates in the body, diet, exercise, and consumption of alcohol are examples of health factors.
III. Nutrition Weight and Activity
Eating is a must-do activity daily. Many people tend to assume the fact of whether they are consuming a balanced diet or not. Too many people tend to consume processed food. Health practitioners advise us to consume food rich in greens. There have been suggestions and types of foods to be consumed each day. However, very few people tend to follow this. BMI should not be used as the only indicator of health conditions. Gaining extra weight is a condition associated with the type of food consumed.
- Physical Activity
Refers to body activity and movements resulting from the contraction of skeletal muscles available in the body. Although exercises are essential for our health and most people are aware of it, very few people manage to adopt training and maintain it. Doing workouts and going to the gym is not the only way to expend energy and remain fit. Energy is also consumed in facilitating body organs to work out. Any activity planned to increase physical fitness is referred to as exercise. Muscular strength, muscular endurance, muscular power, speed, flexibility, agility, balance, good reaction times, and a low percentage of body fat are other components used to assess fitness
- Smoking and Drinking
Alcohol and tobacco are both addictive. But the body metabolizes them differently. Since nicotine is inhaled, its components re easily absorbed into the brain. The alcohol content is absorbed from the stomach. Smoking a ha a more significant biological addiction compared to alcohol. Making it easier to quit drinking but hard to quit smoking. Drinking and smoking are treated differently depending on how culture perceives them. Alcohol usage is prohibited, and people and places facilitating them limited. Tobacco can be consumed even in public. Smokers are only required to be outside buildings when smoking because of existing indoor policies.
VII. Tobacco Use
Tobacco contains roughly 500 chemicals, and tobacco smoke contains about 4,000 chemicals. Smoking is associated with so many challenges and diseases. 98% of smokers understand the side effects of smoking, but they go ahead with smoking. It is approximated that 39.2% of smokers consider quitting, while 11% consider starting. Although smoking was in the rise in areas where the youths are in high numbers like universities, smoking significantly reduced between 1990 and 2010. The number of new smokers keeps on decreasing each day. People smoke because of the appealing effect of nicotine.
VIII. Alcohol
It is approximated that alcohol causes at least 100000 deaths every year. The debate of whether drinking alcohol is good or bad has stimulated several conversations all over. States recommend that drinking should be regulated at any given time. People drink because of different reasons. College alcohol abuse is on the rise each day. Severity in aggression among college students has been linked to the utilization of alcohol. Blending the biological and psychological causes of drinks reveals that alcohol is used to reduce stress. Excessive consumption of alcohol negatively impacts body organs and systems.
References
Gurung, R. (2018). Health psychology: Well-being in a diverse world (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. ISBN: 978-1506392363