Influences on Health: Health-Related Issues - Essay Example

?Health Related Issues Health is an English word which originated from the word hale, an old English word that means "being whole, well or sound" (Francis et al, 2008). This word came from Proto-Indo-European root kailo, that means " whole, uninjured or of good omen". The word Kailo originated from Proto-Germanic origin khalbas, which means "something divided". The world health organization (WHO), defines health as a state of total mental, physical and social well-being with reference to not only being healthy in terms of being disease free. Health can be divided into two broad categories: mental and physical health. With reference to humans, the term physical health refers to a sound body health (Atkins & Gwynn, 2006). This may be as a result of regular physical exercise or activity coupled with adequate rest and excellent nutrition. Physical health mostly relates to everything that concerns the body. On the other hand, mental health refers to a person’s emotional and cognitive well-being. Any person that enjoys sound mental health has no mental disorder. WHO defines mental health as a state of wellbeing in which an individual realizes his/her abilities, can deal with usual stresses, work fruitfully and productively, and is capable to make a contribution to the community as a whole. Wellbeing is an assessment of a person’s life appraised by life’s satisfaction measures, regularity of negative and positive effect (Atkins & Gwynn, 2006). It describes a person’s confidence, physical condition, happiness, and general outlook on life. It is a person’s state of feeling good and caring about one’s self respect to handling those responsibilities that are often neglected due to the constant painstaking hassles of every day. Living a healthy life and Well-being always go hand in hand. Avoiding illness, regular exercise and eating a balance diet does not always mean healthy living. It goes beyond that since it mirrors the social, emotional and mental side of a person’s life. The quality of life is therefore defined by its activities. For an individual to achieve his or her desired quality of life, he or she has to take care of his/her body, diet, state of mind, daily routine and the environment ” (Hanson et al, 2011). These are the key elements of healthy living. The term quality of life is expressed as daily living which is enhanced through clean water and air, enjoyment of plenty space, wholesome food, clean air, water, natural resources, wildlife conservation, protection from toxic substance and crime. It is often used as a measure of an individual’s life (Herlihy, 2002). Generally, quality of life is also used as a measure of a society’s well being. It is mostly related with standard of living though they do not always mean the same. A person’s ability to choose what is right and what is wrong determines his quality of life. The problems that one causes not only affect an individual’s life but also others people’s lives. One should accept personal responsibility for the problems that he/she has caused in their own life. It is important to note that life gives you consequences linked to your conduct or in-action. It is therefore a person’s responsibility to change his/her negligence or mistakes. A child has no responsibility and therefore depends on his/her parents for directions. But when the child grows and becomes an adult, he possesses different roles, responsibilities and functions. This includes being a parent, employee, employer, consumer, a spouse, a citizen etc. There are a lot of challenges that one faces as an adult such as relationship issues and several other issues which tests one’s resolve, character, emotion and strengths. Being responsible means determining what is wrong or right, bad or good and what one as a person cannot or can handle. It is difficult to handle a problem that one has created. But problems that occur out of control of an individual are dealt with in an optimistic manner and therefore can be solved quickly. Self pity and dependency can be avoided if one has the right attitude. In order to be determined and proactive, an individual must admit to his or her responsibility in his or her own life. It is important to value other people’s opinion and feedback when help is needed. It is the individual who has the responsibility of choosing from the various opinions presented to him by friends. Being able to accept responsibility is therefore the right approach to have if one wants to change his life and later succeed in life. Wisdom and maturity cannot be acquired by a person without accepting responsibility. The right attitude enables one to avoid or create unnecessary issues in life such as alcoholism, cigarette smoking and drug abuse. In avoiding these issues, the person, his friends and the environment are not indirectly harmed. Cigarette smoking Smoking not only affects the physical health of a person, but also the mental health too. Smoking causes a lot of illnesses, some of which are highly terminal in nature, such as cancer. Smoking kills approximately 442,000 people yearly in the United States alone. These statistics are made public to the general population through campaigns. But despite this, more people continue joining the smoker’s bandwagon each year. To make matters worse, of the new people who join, about 90% of them are children and adolescents (Disrupt, 2011). This number replaces old smokers who have died at an early age as a result of diseases caused by smoking. Out of the preventable and premature deaths on earth, smoking is on the top of the list followed by obesity. There are a lot of diseases that result from smoking. It not only raises the risk of lung cancer, but also raises the risk of contracting oral cancer, emphysema and stroke (Hanson, et al, 2011). Some statistics compiled show alarming revelations. They show that about 5,000 adolescents smoke their first cigarette daily. Of these adolescents, 3000 quit on the first day and the rest turn into regular smokers. The total current number of adolescent smokers is around 5,000. Smoking has other harmful effects falling on health of a person. It affects cardiovascular system, increases blood pressure, heart failure, causes ischemic stroke, raises a person’s risk of development of blood clot, reduces the amount of oxygen that get carried to tissues by blood, decreases cardiac output & coronary blood flow and finally, it causes blood vessel damage. In terms of psychological health, it causes depression and psychological distress (Hanson, et al, 2011). Most cigarette smokers believe that they only hurt themselves. But this is not the case. Cigarette smokers not only hurt themselves, but the environment and the people who live in it. Every smoker should know some things which concern the environment. It is general knowledge that cigarette pollutes the ground and the air. The exact estimate of how cigarette pollutes the air is not known. But one thing is certain; they contain about 4000 chemicals that are released and exhaled into the atmosphere and air. It is a proven fact that around 30% of Americans are cigarette smokers. This percentage goes much higher in a lot of developing countries. This means that every day, a massive quantity of pollution gets released into the air (Kittleson & Barry, 2005). The figure above shows the statistics relating to deaths caused by cigarette smoking in the United States. It shows that the leading disease caused by cigarette smoking is lung cancer with an estimate of about 128,900 deaths every year. The figure also shows that stroke is the least cause of deaths caused by cigarette smoking (15,900 deaths). The pollution caused by cigarettes does not stop in the air and our bodies. This pollution consequently affects the water we drink and the land we live on. A cigarette affects the land we live on in a lot of ways. Everyday, several millions of cigarette butts get discarded on land. The damage is so high that some states in America e.g. California conduct yearly statewide cigarette butt cleanup. The amount of cigarette butts collected amount to about half of the dump collected (Kittleson & Barry, 2005). Millions of these butts never get collected in other countries and they end up in rivers and later end up in water bodies. The fish in these water bodies often eat them by mistake and mostly end up dying. Those that are left on land end up decaying. It is proven that the chemicals in the cigarette butts take about 25 years of decaying in order to loose their poisonous effects. In the 25 years, they leach and pollute the soil, plant and soil organisms. It takes a lot of resources to produce cigarettes. This makes production of cigarettes to be probably one of the leading impacting features of cigarettes. For the millions of cigarettes smoked every day, it takes a lot of land to grow the tobacco plants. This land used in growing the crops could be put into better use e.g. to plant food crops that can be used to feed starving families (Hanson et al, 2011). Since the tobacco plant is a very delicate plant. It often needs to be sprayed a lot of harmful pesticides and chemicals. A lot of trees are cut down with the purpose of using them to package cigarettes. Statistics show that manufacturing of cigarettes uses about four miles of paper every hour to just roll and package cigarettes. About one tree is cut to produce about roll hundred cigarettes. These trees could be put to better use eg filtration of the pollution caused by cigarettes. As mentioned, non smokers are affected by cigarette smoking. It not only affects the smoker, but also the people with who he or she loves since they are mostly around him/her. According to Francis et al. (2008), about 35,000 of passive smokers die from passive smoking. Children and women are the most at risk among passive smokers. Children that are around a smoker often suffer from ear infections, develop asthma and may suffer from infant death syndrome. Symptoms that are experienced by passive smokers include lung irritation, abnormal mucus formation, coughing, and chest discomfort as well as chest pain. There are also cases of eyes, nose and throat irritation. Chest pain is often a symptom of heart disease. Abuse of alcohol Alcoholism among teenagers and adults in their early 20s especially in universities proves to be a topic that has long seen its sunset days. On countless occasions, students do unlawful deeds due to alcoholic influence of the booze in their veins. Alcohol nonetheless has been legalized in the United States for as long as one would care to mention. The use of this drug is not only allowed for people above the drinking age of eighteen years, but also allowed in Campuses all over the States. Alcohol is however not the issue as its effects have generally been accepted as trivial. The main concern is “the attitude” these University and College students have towards alcohol (Francis et al, 2008). According to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention(CDCP), alcohol use and abuse has been prevalent in the United Kingdom with 50.9 percent of the persons above legal age (18 years) being regular drinkers. This troubling information about alcoholism in the United States has been echoed by Media Plus in their website. They claim that a great percentage of American university students are potential alcoholics. According to Hanson et al. (2011) this raises the question; “what trend is the drug use taking?” (247). According to reports from University of Oxford, the population under alcoholism counselling keeps increasing every year. The reasons behind University students’ alcohol abuse have been reasoned to be relating to stress, influence and social behaviour. It is however recurrent that alcoholism behaviour has been mostly due to negative peer influence. Students who keep the company of peers who are regular drinkers end up the same way. Peer influence has thus accounted for most of the problems relating to alcohol abuse. It remains “the only problem that can hardly be solved in the fight against alcoholism” (Knauer, 2002). Peer pressure and its influence are factors that one cannot do away with. All in all, everyone wants to belong somewhere. With the ever increasing cases of negative influence that leads to risky behaviour, the issue of influence is drawing the attention of key players in the health sector. It is apparent that alcohol use may soon become a national crisis. The popularity faze among cool students creates a sense of worship in the imitation of risky behaviour. Indeed, most of these students who are taking the drug are not even aware that they may later have complications relating to the use of alcohol and its associated beverages. “Alcoholism-related deaths and injuries are constantly on an upswing. Moreover, alcohol abuse leads to psychological problems that may result in suicide attempts, incidences of assault, unsafe sex, sexual abuse, academic problems, vandalism and drunken driving (Hanson et al, 2011). According to MedlinePlus (2012), many alcoholics have been linked to “some form of childhood trauma.” In women, these issues may “result from troublesome childhood, domestic violence, sexual harassment, death of a close relative, difficult relationship and rape incidents in the past” (Knauer, 2002). “The trauma associated with this may however not directly link one to the use of alcohol” (Ketcham & Nicholas, 2003). Alcoholism requires some sense of influence and convincing. This is mostly as a “result of the company that such students keep” (Kittleson & Barry, 2005). Friends would thus give such a person the necessary urge to take up drugs to relieve tension. The use of alcohol in this manner is however less than fulfilling as soon as alcohol effects wears out. Once the alcohol effect wears out, one is left with the pains that had them drinking. This may result to more consumption of alcohol. The alcohol demands for bottle after bottle for one to dig themselves out of their trauma only to jump into a bigger pit i.e. alcoholism. Unfortunately, it requires more effort for an alcoholic to completely stop taking alcohol. The most ill-starred fact is that even “some families find it hard to acknowledge that their children are alcoholics due to the effect that this may have on their societal image.” They therefore do not work towards helping their alcoholic family members out of the addiction (Benton, 2009). Stress has also been a reason related to alcoholism in universities. University students have mentioned that the strenuous academic requirements imposed on them are probable causes for the use of the drug. “In an effort to confront the commonly associated issues relating to stress such as depression, many students resort to alcohol” (Atkins & Gwynn, 2006). The term ‘getting wasted’ or “let’s get wasted” is associated with the desire to turn to alcoholism. Social drinkers are, however, not affected with this trend as their alcohol use is only limited to functions that demand the company of friends. This apparently, makes these students “free of any dependency on alcohol” (Plotnik & Haig, 2010). Contrary to the “common outcome of cultural influence”, the independent use of the substance by members of a particular group can, however, not be founded and research on the same is desired. Another factor that remains unclear is the frequency of these social dependencies as their association to alcohol may be addictive. Statistics from the Journal of Religion and Health indicate that “alcohol use has been associated to religion” (Francis et al, 2008:268). Apparently, religious people and those that tend to have a specific reverence for a deity observe laws that “prohibit them from using alcohol” (Hood et al, 2009). Even at the University levels, Christians and Devout Muslim students avoid using the drug. This has been the trend in most Universities and colleges in the United Kingdom. One may argue for or against “hypocrisy among religious students in the observance of religious laws” (Ward, 2007:92). It is thought that these students may be dishonest in that they commit sacrileges in secret. “Those who genuinely observe religious restrictions against the use of such substances account for a greater percentage of the American students’ population, which protests against alcohol use” (Francis et al, 2008). Interesting to note is the fact that “clergymen in other parts of the world actually thought that religious education in schools could help in curbing the vice among students” (Herlihy, 2002:55). Ven (2011) conducted a survey to establish the reason as to “why University students loved getting wasted” (1). Students revealed with detail that drinking gives the social confidence to feel ungratified to a click. The bamboozled characters resulting from alcohol influence make many long for that feeling they love to forget soon after sobering up. The University professor, unlike many who seemed to attribute negative influence to alcohol use, seemed to look at the matter from a positive perspective. He argues that by taking care of their fellow alcohol users whenever they fall ill, university students get a taste of adult responsibility. He continues to say that “the depiction of college as a place for heavy drinking is partly due to Hollywood depictions in movies such as Animal House that showcase a lot of alcoholism” (Ven, 2011:69). The use of alcohol in the United Kingdom is not new to the health, as well as community concerns of the nation. As a measure to end this trend, the attitude of students in the universities towards alcohol must change. Alcohol does not only fail in sorting out psychological issues, it brings about untold health issues that need resolve. In this light, “only the government can put in place ample and adequate measures to end alcoholism in the United Kingdom” (Atkins & Gwynn, 2006). It is the role of every person to be personally responsible for his actions. Personal responsibility is a duty to everyone. To be responsible demands a person to stop blaming other people and accepting that "I am responsible" (Disrupt, 2011). It is everyone’s individual duty in making sure that their behavior remains good no matter how they were brought up and the kind of life challenges they receive. It also means being accountable for the level of one’s health, wealth, well being and happiness. It is therefore the responsibility of an individual to realize what his/her actions are causing to himself as an individual, the environment and the people who live around him. It is the responsibility of a smoker to know the damaging effect of cigarette smoking and hence make an effort to quit the habit. Quitting not only decrease the risk to heart disease, but also reduces the risk by around 50% of getting a heart attack and subsequent deaths caused by it. Quitting undertakes lots of mental and physical efforts. For a smoker to succeed in quitting, he /she should be stress free and mentally relaxed. Also adequate sleep and regular exercise helps a smoker to quit smoking. The American Lung Association (ALA) and The American Academy of Otolaryngology (AAO) developed some tips which are of great help to smokerswho are in the process of quitting (Ward, 2007). Bibliography Ketcham, Katherine, and Nicholas A. Pace. Teens under the influence: the truth about kids, alcohol, and other drugs : how to recognize the problem, and what to do about it. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003. Print. "Alcoholism." Medline Plus. Nap. nod. Web. 4 May. 2012 < http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/alcoholism.html> Atkins, A. & Gwynn, M. (2006).Teaching Alcohol and Smoking Education in the Schools. New York: Macmillan. Print. Benton, S. (2009). Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic: Professional Views and Personal Insights. Westport, Conn: Pager. Print. 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