The Quality of an Individuals Life - Essay Example

Health Belief Essay People’s social behaviour is accurately examined by examining their beliefs about certain behaviours in a social context, including their social perception and representations. Beliefs differentiate and individual, but they can be modified. However, it is worth noting that, people always cling to them and acts on them even against their own interest (Schwarzer 2008,). It is therefore clear that, whether people will undertake a task or health behaviour or not, depends on their judgment of their own ability to organize and execute the action required completing the task at hand. The quality of an individual’s life is highly influenced by their lifestyle habits. The process of aging can be incapacitated and more so, people can even extend their days of their lives if only they substantially manage their health habits. When an individual is aware of the health risk, this can trigger change of the same. Otherwise, if the knowledge about how ones lifestyle is detrimental to the health, then, there will be no driving force towards changing the bad habits. Belief has been proved to facilitate human motivation and trigger actions This therefore means that, except and individual believe that they can achieve their desired effects of their actions, they may have nothing that is to encourage them even when there are difficulties (Ball et al 2009). In social cognitive theory, normative influences regulate actions social sanction and self sanctions control systems. This being the case, people regulate their behaviour by self evaluation reactions. This therefore calls for development of inner drives skills operating through psychological functions that must be triggered towards self directed change. Intention and desire alone are not influential if people lack the capability to exercise influence over their motivation and behaviour. It has been proven that, the behaviour affecting foods and drinks choices change as individuals becomes adolescents. Few adolescents meet the official recommendation for nutrition. The consumption of fruits and vegetables decrease when entering adolescent while the consumption of junk foods increases (Vereecken et al 2005). However, when this is the case, gender also determines the kind of behaviour exerted in this case. Boys have a likelihood of consuming more fat, energy and proteins as compared to girls who are more likely to have more fruits and vegetables in recommended portions (Xie et al 2003) Physical activities also decrease as an adolescent grow older. In actual facts, the walking distance gets shorter and car driving increases, and thus there is a huge decline in the physical activities. The body composition and growth of muscle mass that is common during adolescent leads to physical and increased tolerance for exercise for the teenage (Taliaferro, Rienzo & Donovan 2010). In the same case, due to the changes, both physiological and psychological in the bodies of these adolescents, they try to determine the exact nature of themselves, and consolidate multiple choices into a coherent whole. This being the case, the adolescent finds that they cannot be able to meet the expectation of what they should and this has detrimental implications for their perception of their own value, and thus affecting their self esteem. Low self esteem which maybe as a result of the physical appearance and body size during this period is a risk factor that is associated with development of eating disorder. Dieting is shown to be very common and this has consequential impacts on the health of an individual. Girls in adolescent stage, regardless of their weight, work towards losing weight or even prevent themselves from gaining so that they can fit in their peers. Restrained eating is common among this group and this causes many health risks. It is however worth noting that, older adolescents know that intake of unhealthy food may have long term effects on their health, preferring the taste of this food maybe more important than their future health. Some teenagers have an increased autonomy over food choice and may even have some money from part time jobs. Additionally, most of their time is spent with friends, where eating as behaviour represents an important part of socialization and recreation. When this is the case, group conformity determines the food selection so that they can seek peer approval and social identity which in the long run may be detrimental to their health (Story et al 2002). Even if adolescents know that healthy nutrition is important and even wish to eat healthy diets, this may be given less priority following the desire to be accepted by friends and peer. This in the long run makes the attitudes of other to be incorporated as their own. However, it is a point worth noting that, having the right knowledge and attitudes towards healthy diets among the adolescent may not be influential if at all the availability of that healthy food is incapacitated. Social cognitive theory clearly explains the difference in dietary habits across ages (Ball et al 2009). For instance, a high school students often have greater freedom to leave school ground to go visit food kiosks or fast food restaurant than it is the case with primary and lower secondary students. They may even have more money to spend on unhealthy foods in school canteens. Those who work may also be affected by food selection in the workplace. Availability of healthy foods has sows to be a strong force of healthy eating amongst the adolescents. Self efficacy as explained by Fahlman and colleagues (2010), adolescents from low socioeconomic positions have higher intakes of fast foods and calorie dense food that those of a higher socioeconomic, while the intake of fruits and vegetables is substantially low. Self efficacy to change behaviour shows that, adolescents of low socioeconomic positions have the highest likelihood of reporting unhealthy food availability in the home environment. It is also worth noting that, the adolescent food eating behaviour is determined and even influenced by a couple of aspects. Youths are influenced by peer, how they are modelled by their parents, the food they prefer, media, and the body image at the moment and the cost of foods (Ball et al 2009). Personal behaviours also impact the eating behaviour for youths which include attitude, beliefs, the kind of food they prefer and the body changes that this group encounter, the environmental factors also influence their behaviour which includes, the family, friends and peer networks, schools, fast food outlets and social cultural norms all affect the eating behaviour for adolescents (Ge, Conger & Elder 2001). In the same scenario, the adolescent have many changes ranging from cognitive, physical, social, not forgetting lifestyles and this comes with changes in their eating habits. They fall for fast foods, snacks, eating away from home and this determines how their health will be in the future. Most youth report that, health eating is not a primary concern during teenage years. In other words, they are less concerned about their diets, blaming it all to the taste and the appeal of foods available. They don’t worry about the kind of food they take. Additionally, they state that, it is a long process to prepare healthy foods and in some instances, their availability is wanting. According to them good nutrition is vital but it is to much a bother. Self discipline is minimal in adolescent who defeated by the urge of junk foods and finally, they do not find any urgency in dealing with these issues now, they can worry about it later in life (Alonso et al 2005). This is detrimental to the eating habits of youths and therefore, their behaviour cost them their health. Adolescent have a tendency of skipping meals. This is detrimental to their health. Skipping breakfast affects their performance in school and doing away with lunch is also means that their bodies miss the most important nutrients needed to energize the body. Parents have the strongest influence in adolescents eating behaviour. However, due to the much time spend with their peer and the less time spent with their family, the influence is incapacitated. Eating disorder arises due to the perceived deficiencies in physical appearance. Eating disorder arises out of perceived negative body image resulting to disorders like anorexia nervosa, which is the loss of weight without any coercion. Those adolescent suffering from this kind of disorder faer gaining weight and may even have a feeling that they are overweight even when they are way below their normal BMI (Wilson et al 2002). Another kind of a disorder is Bulimia. This results to recurrent binging and purging, which is results to rapid consumption of massive amounts of food, and then try all means to lose weight including self induced vomiting, and compulsive exercising not forgetting excessive fasting They are mostly associated with stress, anger, depression or even loneliness. When one is aware of the health risks is more inclined towards making informed decisions and this is beneficial for it brings precondition for change as mentioned earlier. It is an actual fact that, people who have knowledge deficit of their lifestyle habits and the sick caused to their health have no driving force towards a change of those habits (Fahlman et al 2010). However, it has been noted that, even when adolescent do have the knowledge or even the information of the detrimental effects which are associated with the kind of diets they partake, they take no action. This is due to the fact that, much is done so as they can be recognized or so that they can fit with their peers. Another aspect is that, they do not find any urgency to take care of their health, which they can do later in life. In other words, adolescents approve or even disapprove some behaviour, and this influences their eating habits. This is attributed to the notion that, the outcomes expected by the adolescents, is the one that influence their health behaviour (Ball et al 2009). This being the case, some of the foods they take is all about the peer influence and they want to fit in their world and so they end up indulging in detrimental behaviours. They also look for satisfaction and worth and hence the refrain from anything that will compromise this. The performance of a particular behaviour is determined by the intention to perform or not to perform (Story et al 2002). The attitude towards behaviour also plays a vital role in this, plus their evaluations whether positive or negative of the behaviour and finally the pressure to either comply or not comply with the behaviour. Social pressure on looking for a perfect body has increased prevalence of body satisfaction in adolescent population (Ball et al 2009). It has been recognized that, eating in adolescent is substantial far from the dietary recommendations. They report deficient intake of some food or nutrients while over consuming other foods. Some eating behaviours lead to harmful consequences on their health and development. Peer norms are much stronger than the parent’s norms in affecting the adolescent eating behaviour. It has been proven that, the peer norm for fruit, juice and vegetable consumption have a substantial negative correlation to adolescent total fruit, juice and vegetable consumption. This therefore means that, consuming healthy foods is totally determined by the motivation of the modelling from the peer (Fahlman et al 2010). Conclusively, there is a close link between attitude, subjective norm, intention and self schema and healthy eating among the adolescent. This group holds different levels of intention to eat healthful which is correlated by adolescents’ many different behavioural beliefs and normative beliefs. They have the highest probability of holding both positive and negative valence on healthy eating as some of them state that, health food are good for health but have rather bad taste and are not easy to prepare. However, when encouraged to eat healthy foods, they easily comply mostly when their peer and parents are also consuming the same kind of foods. Their personal motivation also plays an important role in translating their intention to eat healthily to the actual behaviour. References Alonso, A., Rodriguez, M., Alonso, J., Carretero,G., and Martin M, 2005. Eating Disorders: Prevalence and risk profile among secondary students. Social Psychiatry Psychiatric Epidemiology, 40,, pp. 980-987.. Ball, K., MacFarlane, A., Crawford, D., Savige, G., 2009. Can social cognitive theory constructs explain socio-economic variations in adolescent eating behaviours? A mediation analysis. Health Education Research 24(3), , pp. 496-506. Fahlman, M. F., McCaughtry, N., Martin, J. & Shen, B. , 2010. Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Nutrition Behaviours: Targeted Interventions Needed.. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behaviour 42(1), , pp. 10-16. . Ge, X., Conger, R., and Elder, G., 2001. Pubertal transition, stressful life events, and the emergence of gender differences in adolescent depressive symptoms.. Developmental Psychology, 37(3), 404-417., pp. 404-417.. Schwarzer, R., 2008,. Modeling Health Behavior Change: How to Predict and Modify the Adoption and Maintenance of Health Behaviors. APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, 57 (1), p. 1–29. Story, M., Neumark-Sztainer, D. & French, S., 2002. Individual and environmental influences on adolescent eating behaviors.. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 102(3 Suppl),, pp. 40-51.. Taliaferro, L. A., Rienzo, B. A. & Donovan, K. A. , 2010. Relationships between youth sport participation and selected health risk behaviors from 1999 to 2007.. Journal of Scientific Health 80(8), , pp. 399-410. . Vereecken, C. A., Inchley, J., Subramanian, S. V., Hublet, A. & Maes, L., 2005. The relative influence of individual and contextual socio-economic status on consumption of fruit and soft drinks among adolescents in Europe.. European Journal of Public Health 15(3), , pp. 224-232. Wilson, D. K., Friend, R., Teasley, N., Green, S., Reaves, I. L., & Sica, D.A . (2002)., 2002. Motivational versus social cognitive interventions for promoting fruit and vegetable intake and physical activity in African American adolescents.. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 24, , pp. 310-319.. Xie, B., Gilliland, F. D., Li, Y-F. & Rockett, H. R. H., 2003. Effects of Ethnicity, Family Income, and Education on Dietary Intake among Adolescents.. Preventive Medicine 36,, pp. 30-40. . Read More