Lesson 5: Adapting Healthier Behavior

Adapting Healthier Behavior

In the world in which we live in, it is so easy to pick up on a lot of bad habits that can negatively impact our health. We live in a world that promotes unhealthy behaviors and are less favorable of healthier choices. It is much harder to adapt to a healthier lifestyle, however with the correct knowledge, commitment, and resources it can definitely be accomplished.

Last year my dad went through a bout of feeling a very ill. He would experience extreme fatigue, excessive thirst/dry mouth, blurriness and loss of vision at times. My dad has always been one to be on the go and live a very fast paced lifestyle. However, these symptoms were beginning to take a huge toll on his ability to function as he normally would. He decided to take a trip to the doctors only to discover that what he had been experiencing was the result of getting diabetes. This came as a shock to him and to our family. The doctor reassured him that this was a very manageable disease. However, it would take a lot of commitment, preparation, and good decision making on how and what he put into his body. Prior to receiving this news my dad payed little interest into what he ate. Due to the nature of his schedule, he would eat donuts everyday for breakfast, consume a lot of sweets, bread and soda throughout the day and spend no time exercising and taking care of himself. In addition, he was also a highly stressed individual who has always dealt with the weight of juggling too many things. In the beginning of hearing this news, my dad didn’t take changing his lifestyle serious and continued to engage in things that would negatively impact his health. This resulted in the worsening of his condition which did not work out in his favor.

After going through the reading in this lessons I came across the health belief model. This model simply suggests that that the actions we take to positively impact our health are strongly influenced by factors that include: health values, perceived susceptibility to illness, perceptions of illness severity, expectation of treatment success,self efficacy, perceived barriers and benefits and cues to action. (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2005) These various factors play a role in how one will approach either changing or not changing their negative behavior.

Initially, in my dads case, he somewhat had some type of knowledge of the severity of the illness because it was something that ran in his family and also something that had  plagued a few of his sibiings. Having this knowledge did not effect his way of thinking. However, I feel that if my dad would have had interest in practicing good health habits initially it could have possibly prevented or delayed him getting this diagnosis.

Overtime, my dad eventually began to start changing his behaviors. When asked what influenced his change, he started to mention the he had been losing a lot of friends lately to various diseases and illness. In addition I (his daughter), recently had a son and he stressed how it is important to him to watch his grandchild grow up. With that notion, it is important for him to take care of his health so that he can be around for his grandchild. Considering these cues to action really helped my dad to put things into perspective in his life. He began to develop a healthier lifestyle by drastically cutting down on the sweets, eating healthier choices, altering his carbohydrate intake and by making exercise a major part of his daily routine. He is more in tune with his health and regularly attends nutrition conferences.

Although my dad could have possibly taken preventative measures before getting this diagnosis, it sometimes takes going through issues such as this to change our way of thinking. It not only helped him adapt to a healthier lifestyle, but it instilled some type of awareness for me and my siblings so that we can hopefully take preventative measures to protect our health and future.

                                                                            Works Cited

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2005). Applied social psychology: understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

1 comment

  1. Christopher Ryan Ivery

    Hello,

    I’m glad to hear that your father is doing better. The influence of watching his grandchild grow up is so amazing and inspiring. It’s awesome to see how the power of family can motivate somebody to live healthier. I believe that your father deciding to change his lifestyle is tertiary prevention. Tertiary prevention is when a person already has a disease or disorder and is trying to stop it from getting worse or to improve the prognosis (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). It seems as though your father is doing a great job in turning his bad news into something positive.

    Good luck to you and your father!

    References

    Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications

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