Discussion Assignment
What can we learn from Health Psychology and what does it tell us about health-based behaviors? Choose some of the concepts that you feel are most compelling related to Health Psychology and discuss why you feel they are important and the role they play in the overall health of people.
Your Discussion should be 3-4 paragraphs in length, detailing your thoughts and position using 2-3 readings references for support. Also, be sure to pose 1-2 well-thought-out questions from which your colleagues can formulate a response or generate further discussion.
Health Behaviors and The Health Belief Model (HBM)
We cannot deny that our behavior is deeply related to our illness. According to Ogden (2019), About 50% of human mortality from the ten leading causes of death, such as heart attack or stroke, results from individual behavior. Therefore, I think health behaviors and the health belief model (HBM) are the most compelling concept related to Health Psychology.
Health behaviors include not only such as bad habits of smoking, eating foods high in fat, drinking large amounts of alcohol, and having a sedentary lifestyle which seems to bring us adverse effects, but also obtaining regular physical screening, wearing seat belts, and exercising, which bring good influences on our health (Dickerson & Mycek, 2007). Many factors influence an individual's health behavior, including social values, genetics, environment, personal emotions, beliefs, experiences, etc. (Dickerson & Mycek, 2007).
One example is smoking. If the parent is a smoker, the child may have been exposed to the smell and smoke of cigarettes from an early age and become accustomed to it so that they may not hesitate to smoke at all. Even though we know that smoking harms our health, children may downplay the dangers of smoking if their parents have smoked for many years and appear in good health. In this way, our surrounding environment and experiences greatly influence our health beliefs and behaviors. Many chronic and lifestyle diseases develop as influenced by our behavior and lifestyle as well as psychosocial factors such as stress as much as or more than by genetic or biological factors (Dickerson & Mycek, 2007). This is the role our health behaviors and HBM play in our overall health.
Question: Please give some examples of health behaviors that you practice.
References
Dickerson, S. S., & Mycek, P. J. (2007). Health psychology. In R. F. Baumeister & K. D. Vohs (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Social Psychology 1, 415-419. SAGE Publications. Retrieved from https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/1605725/mod_book/chapter/365086/Health%20Psychology.pdf
Ogden, J. (2019). The Psychology of Health and Illness: an open access course. Retrieved from http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/841757/1/__homes.surrey.ac.uk_home_.System_Desktop_The Psychology of Health and Illnessbk.pdf
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