In
this article, we are going to examine healthy living so we will teach people
and community what they have to learn so as to stay healthy. We are going to
examine what healthy living is, and also the role of the health educator in
promoting healthy living.
By
the end of this article, you will be able to:
·
Discuss the role of health educator in promoting healthy living.
·
Explain what healthy living means
·
Healthy Lifestyle Benefits
· Opposite
of A Healthy Lifestyle
· Healthy
Lifestyle Choices
· Making
Healthy Lifestyle Changes
· Building
Healthy Lifestyle Habits
· Healthy
Lifestyle Tips
What is Healthy Living?
At
a population level, healthy living is practices of population groups that are
in line with supporting, improving, maintaining and/or enhancing health. On
individual basis, healthy living is the indulgence in health-enhancing behaviors,
or simply put, living healthy.
It
implies the physical, mental and spiritual ability to create healthy choices
(Public Health Agency Canada (PHAC), 2013).
Living
healthy is to assist people to assume the responsibility and observe choices to
help their health in the area of diet, their environment, adopting a healthy
lifestyle has become a serious concern in modern-day Nigeria.
Environments
(physical, sociocultural, economic, and political) are identified by recent
findings as a vital consideration in promoting healthy lifestyles. Many folks
don’t consider their living environment as a part of their overall health and
wellness plan.
The
living environment can have an enormous impact on long-term health. Staying
healthy requires a holistic approach; not only eating well or exercising but by
also taking into consideration the environmental impacts on health. It’s also
good to understand that healthy home has a great impact on individual’s health.
How to Achieve Healthy Living: The Role of Health Educator
The
Health Educator is to give adequate information to high school children and
people within the communities on the most things needed to be healthy in their
environment and develop a healthy lifestyle.
The
Health Educator is to coach people on the way to optimize and create living
environments that are balanced, comfortable, and healthier. The Health Educator
is to give counseling and advocacy strategies that promote physical activity
(PA) and reduce sedentary time in children, adolescents and their families.
Three
main areas of information on healthy living to attain their roles are:
· Diet
· Physical
activity (exercise)
· Healthy
environment
· Mental
health.
1. Diet: Diet
is among the key concerns to market healthy living. This is often to
concentrate on foods with low fat, high fibres, also encouraging reduced
tobacco, coffee and alcohol intake, and increased intake of natural foods,
fruits and vegetable.
There’s
a desire to balance caloric intake with physical activity to avoid excessive
weight gain throughout the life cycle. The aim of eating good diet is to be
healthy, achieve and maintain a good health status at every stage in life
2. Physical activity
(exercise): Health educators should give advice on the
requirement for physical activity (PA). PA choices should be integrated into
daily activities in ways, which make them enjoyable, easy, natural and
desirable. Parents must be included as agents of change for young children.
Physical
activity (PA): is said to be any type of body movement that works muscles
increasing resting energy.
Exercise:
could be a planned, structured and repetitive PA to work out any part of the
body.
It
is important to still lay emphasis on PA in schools and houses because outdoor
education programmes can increase youth self-esteem, the motivation to be
articulate, conflict resolution and problem-solving skills.
Ten
minutes of moderate-to-high impact activities (such as running and jumping)
performed two to a few days/week can have a modest positive effect on bone
mineral density. Team sports can build new skills, raise self-confidence and
cause new friendships.
It’s
usually advised that:
·
Children and adolescents: participate in a minimum of an hour of moderate to
vigorous physical activity per day for a minimum of 5 days per week.
·
Adults: engage in a minimum of half-hour of moderate to vigorous physical
activity, above usual activities, on 5 or more days of the week.
The
WHO recommends a healthy school-community model for older children, where PA is
promoted in multiple settings. Research demonstrates that a multifaceted
school-based programme that addresses PA, sedentary time and nutrition are very
good, once they are implemented in multiple settings and have parental support.
Read: 7 Basic Roles and Responsibilities of a Health Educator
Healthy Lifestyle Benefits
Scientists
have long been conducting studies focused on the effects of lifestyle on health
and well being. A large meta-analysis that included the health outcome data of
over 500,000 individuals concluded that adherence to a healthy life style was linked
to lower mortality risk (Loef and Walach, 2012).
A
more recent study tracked the health habits and outcomes of over
120,000 participants for three decades. Individuals that met the researcher’s
healthy lifestyle criteria were far less likely to die prematurely because of
cardiovascular disease or cancer (Li et al., 2018).
But
how much lower is the risk of premature deaths when people live healthy
lifestyles? According to this study, women with healthy habits lived an average
of fourteen years longer than their counterparts with unhealthy lifestyles (Li
et al., 2018).
In
contrast, men with healthy lifestyles lived approximately twelve additional
years (Li et al., 2018). Of course, a longer lifespan isn’t the only benefit of
a healthy lifestyle.
A
study with over 3,000 men and women between age’s 55and 85has shown that individuals
with healthy lifestyles performed better than their counterparts in all
measures (Visser et al., 2018).
For
instance, the individuals in the healthy lifestyle group were faster in
physical agility tests and less likely to display symptoms of depression
(Visser et al., 2018). They also had slower declines in cognitive function and
social interactions (Visser et al., 2018).
In
short, living a healthy lifestyle can help us feel healthier and be less likely
to be depressed.
Moreover,
we might live an additional decade by adopting health-promoting habits.
Opposite of A Healthy Lifestyle
· Binge-eating
or overeating
· Anorexia
or other unhealthy caloric restrictions
· Consuming
processed foods and beverages
· Heavy
drinking
· Smoking
· Using
drugs
· Gambling
· Poor
hygiene
· Skipping
routine medical and dental checkups.
You might have noticed that this list doesn't contain every unhealthy choice. Moreover, several other practices sneak into our routines by appearing healthy (i.e., fad diets and juice cleanses). Nevertheless, these behaviors may end up damaging our well-being in the long run.
Although
the unhealthy effects of the behaviors on this list and elsewhere are apparent to
most, many people find it hard to disengage their lifestyles from one or more
of them.
Generally,
the reason for our inability to quit unhealthy behaviors is trifold; these
behaviors feel good, are easily accessible or more effortless than their
healthier counterparts, and have become habits in the past.
Healthy Lifestyle Choices
Now
that we discussed the behaviors associated with unhealthy lifestyles, you might
be wondering about healthy choices.
As
mentioned earlier, specific healthy lifestyle choices will differ for each
individual depending on where they live and other factors, such as
socioeconomic status. Yet, most healthy lifestyle options have overarching
characteristics.
Here
are some of the shared features of healthy lifestyles.
· Eating
whole foods instead of processed foods
· Being
mindful about food portions
· Avoiding
substances of abuse
· Being
physically active
· Getting
adequate sleep
· Good
hygiene habits
· Practicing
safe sex
· Prioritizing
medical and mental care needs
Choosing
options that fit one or more of these criteria may be easier said than done, at
least initially. Suppose a person spends most of her day in the office, sitting
in front of a computer.
Then
she rushes to pick up her children from school and drives them to their
activities. Moreover, having very little time to cook, she picks dinner at a
drive-thru most weekday nights.
After
dinner, she watches a few hours of TV and falls asleep on the couch without
even brushing her teeth.
Changes are, this person might feel quite guilty about her lack of physical activity, food choices, and evening habits. But with so many aspects of her lifestyle being less than ideal, she might feel overwhelmed by the thought of changing them.
So let’s learn how to make healthy lifestyle changes without getting
demoralized.
Making Healthy Lifestyle Changes
Making
healthy lifestyle changes starts with a step-by-step plan.
In
other words, before you start doing many things differently at once, you might
want to assess what parts of your lifestyle you’d like to improve and how you
might be able to improve them.
Then,
you can determine which changes you’d like to make first and how much time you
might need to turn that change into a habit.
Therefore,
the key to making healthy lifestyle changes is to start small and make only one
realistic change at a time. Taking small steps might appear slow and
ineffective during moments when you feel self-motivated to quit all harmful
habits cold turkey, and you might be tempted to drastically change every aspect
of your life.
After
all, you may want to live a healthier life as soon as you can and reap the
benefits of a healthy lifestyle sooner than later.
Nonetheless,
many people become frustrated when they try to change too much in a brief span
and cause themselves unnecessary stress. Taking small steps ensures that more
of the progress you make is successful before moving on to the next.
In
addition, small and carefully planned steps also allow you to try alternatives
if the change.
Building Healthy Lifestyle Habits
The
goal of making healthy lifestyle changes is to build healthy habits. Yet, transforming
a change into a solid habit is a challenge in and of itself. But how can we
make lifestyle changes that will stand the test of time? One thing you might
want to keep in mind is that, besides careful planning, changes in your
lifestyle will need a long-term commitment.
You
might have observed a friend or a loved one resolve to lose weight. They might
have gone on a restrictive diet and spent many hours at the gym.
Yet,
soon after reaching their weight target, they might have returned to their old
eating habits and put away their gym bag in the far corner of their closet,
slowly gaining all the weight they had shed. Outcomes like this are associated
with a lack of commitment to behavioral changes.
The
secret to building healthy habits that last is to choose sustainable behaviors
that you can stick to.
Choose
healthy habits that you enjoy
So how do we know if
a behavior is sustainable? The sustainability of a behavior depends on how much
time and effort it requires and whether we are willing to commit to it day
after day. Thus, habits that require the least time and effort might be easier
to incorporate into our daily lives.
Yet, there is
another secret ingredient to make habits stick: likability.
As discussed earlier,
many people find detrimental behaviors hard to shed because they feel good. It
becomes even more challenging if we attempt to replace them with habits that we
don’t enjoy at all. Therefore, if we want our habits to last a long time, we
might pick those we like and enjoy doing.
Examples of healthy habits
For instance, at this stage of my career, I spend most of my day sitting on my office chair. Hence, about five years ago, I decided to increase my physical activity level.
Some of
my close friends regularly work out at a gym, and I followed suit.
Unfortunately, I
felt awkward every time I stepped into the weight room and tried to figure out
how to use any of the machines.
Similarly, running
on a treadmill made my legs feel like noodles and left my head spinning every
time I stepped down.
Using an elliptical or riding a stationary bike wasn’t exciting, either.
So, I decided to try
something I’d enjoy. Remembering that I used to love hiking while in college, I
started walking on nearby trails. Soon afterward, I adopted my dog from a
shelter, and the two of us have been walking or running three to four miles
most days for the past four years, rain or shine.
What transformed my
walks into a lifestyle habit? Enjoying fresh air and the company of my canine
friend.
Read: Definitions, Aims, Objectives, Importance, Purpose of Health Education
Social support and healthy habits
Speaking of the
company of friends, another factor that may help lifestyle changes stick is the
support from others. If you have family and friends who encourage you to take
healthy steps and cheer you on your journey, you may find it easier to commit to
those changes.
If you don’t have a
support system, no worries. You might be able to find support groups or
organizations where you live or online and interact with others doing similar
changes.
Moreover, you might
also use apps to help you set goals, send you reminders, and display daily
affirmations.
Sometimes, when we
think about healthy lifestyles, we think of strenuous exercises and constant
dieting. This way of thinking is neither valid nor encouraging.
First, it ignores
the essential quality of healthy lifestyles: the lack of unhealthy habits such
as alcohol or drug abuse. Second, although a healthy lifestyle involves
physical activity and healthy eating, these behaviors should feel pleasurable
instead of painful or restrictive.
We will discuss
exercise and dieting below, but before we get there, here is a video that touches
upon this topic.
Healthy
Lifestyle Tips
The first key to a
healthy lifestyle is avoiding harmful activities. But how can we avoid harmful
activities? The easiest option is making them harder.
For instance, if you
eat a bag of chips every day, you might stop buying chips and stock your
kitchen with healthier options instead.
The second key to a
healthy lifestyle is doing healthy things you enjoy.
It is easier to turn
a healthy activity into a lifelong habit if you enjoy doing it.
Naturally, our
tastes change over time, and something you like doing now may not be as pleasurable
when you get older.
Hence, you might
want to try different activities once in a while and incorporate new habits if they
suit your needs and give you joy.
The last key is to take care of your general well-being.
This not only includes attending your
routine medical and dental checkups but also having good hygiene to keep your
body healthy and getting enough sleep to recharge your body and mind.
Using these three
keys may allow you to unlock a healthy and happy lifestyle for good.
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