Healthy Lifestyle
In modern society, there is an urgent social problem associated with a low level of health, which requires a detailed analysis of its condition, the search for and implementation of new approaches to the formation of value orientations of people regarding their own health and issues of its preservation. At various stages of the development of society, great attention has always been paid to the study of health problems, it is not for nothing that health is undoubtedly one of the highest values. Representatives of various sciences and professions made attempts to penetrate the secrets of the health phenomenon, to determine its essence in order to learn how to skillfully manage it, use it economically throughout life, and find means to preserve it.
In medical and biological research, a healthy lifestyle is interpreted as a complex of health-improving and preventive measures that ensure the harmonious development of the personality, and its working capacity, and contribute to strengthening health (Doegah & Acquah, 2022). The psychological and pedagogical direction recognizes that a healthy lifestyle is a way of life for a person, the purpose of which is the formation, preservation, and strengthening of health (Robson & Riley, 2019). An important factor in the formation of a healthy lifestyle is the motivation of the individual and their psychological attitude to maintaining health.
Among the important factors in solving current tasks of health, preservation is the formation of an urgent priority of health at various stages of personality development, education in people of motivation for a healthy lifestyle, as well as the ability to use the acquired knowledge in everyday activities. The implementation of the specified tasks involves the introduction of the development of a culture aimed at the protection and preservation of health (Farhadnejad et al., 2022; Keele, 2019). At the same time, the active involvement of every person in this matter is necessary, special attention is needed for children of preschool and school age, who need to be taught to treat health respectfully from the first years of life (Sanders et al., 2021). The active motivation for a healthy lifestyle directly depends on the unity of education and upbringing, therefore the formation of a health-preserving paradigm in pedagogical activities is especially relevant.
In recent years, there has been an increase in the incidence of almost many classes of diseases. It is teenagers who have the highest incidence rates of endocrine pathology, diseases of the nervous system, musculoskeletal system, frequency of injuries, and poisoning compared to other population groups (Bhatti et al., 2020). The decline in the level of health of young people is due to both objective specific reasons (heredity, environmental pollution, etc.) and more general ones (crisis phenomena in the economy, social instability). Value orientations regarding one’s own health, which dominate the youth environment, change depending on the nature of ideals and authorities that determine the direction vectors in the spiritual world of a specific group of young people.
In this vein, the fact that physical education is the key to a healthy lifestyle seems indisputable. Modern scientific studies of the impact of systemic sports on young people’s health indicate that today this is one of the most promising areas that effectively and radically solves the issue of improving health (López-Martínez et al., 2022; Myers et al., 2019). The possibilities of various types of sports to have a positive effect on strengthening health, correcting body and posture, increasing general working capacity, mental stability, and self-affirmation are great.
Nutrition
It is impossible to ensure human health without rational nutrition. The latter should be understood as something that satisfies physiological needs for food products and contributes to maintaining high performance and health (Shavit et al., 2021). Therefore, food should be consumed not only as a source of energy but also as a complex of substances that have a specific biological activity that affects all types of metabolism in the body. A healthy diet involves not only its caloric content but also its balance (Andrejs et al., 2013). The essence of the last mono is defined as nutrition that provides the body with the necessary nutrients in an optimal ratio. At the same time, special attention should be paid to substances that cannot be produced in the body. These are, first of all, essential amino acids, vitamins, and minerals.
Nutrition should ensure harmonious development and coordinated activity of the body. For this, the food ratio in terms of quantity and quality must be balanced with the needs of a person in accordance with his profession, age, and gender. Physiological needs of the body depend on many conditions, which, as a rule, are constantly changing, so it is almost impossible to accurately balance nutrition at every moment of life. The body has special regulatory mechanisms that allow it to use the food it eats and absorb the necessary nutrients in the amount it needs at the moment.
Behavioral Change and Healthy Lifestyle Promotion
A modest but significant body of research suggests that people’s understanding of their participation in healthy lifestyles is permeated by time, leading to personal experiences of eating and exercising as dependent, dynamic, visceral, emotional, and temporal. The social-cognitive and behavioral models that predominate in modern health promotion primarily describe lifestyle change as an easy-to-achieve and sequential manner (Lianov et al., 2019). However, they do not make use of such intricacy in their temporal assumptions.
The main cause of mortality for both men and women globally is non-communicable or lifestyle disorders. As a response, domestic and international recommendations for a healthy lifestyle encourage control of nutrition and exercising, with a special emphasis on weight loss as a way to lower risk. The WHO promotes a social-ecological paradigm for health promotion that takes into account the multilayer effects of the environment, society, economy, government, law, and interpersonal relationships on people’s health and behavior (Robson & Riley, 2019). However, the majority of lifestyle-related health promotion strategies use social-cognitive and behavioral models that largely focus on the traits and behaviors of one particular individual.
Time plays a role in how socioeconomic position affects how people respond to health promotion. Health promotion, according to academics, disregards the realities of those with limited means (Melnyk et al., 2020). They are constrained in their so-called short horizons by and to the daily fight to obtain food and other necessities, therefore they reject the potentiality of lifestyle recommendations. Health promotion frequently ignores lived experiences of pleasure, which leaves out the positive ways that individuals eat, drink, and exercise as components of a rich and complete present (Cristiani et al., 2021). There is a precise degree to which they overlook how to reconcile the past and the future in ways that protect them against advice that causes worry, help them accept inevitabilities, and enable them to live a bearable existence.
Then, lack of motivation, nutritious food alternatives, awareness about healthy lifestyles, and an absence of opportunity for physical activity are among the obstacles to leading a healthy lifestyle that was noted. Support and inspiration from mentors as well as information on the appropriate diet seem to be among the primary facilitators for a healthy lifestyle (Austin et al., 2022). The building of a strolling route, the provision of better food alternatives, and educational resources for healthy eating are among the crucial tactics that were adopted.
Two popular intervention strategies – communicating knowledge and rewarding behavioral change – are frequently employed to promote healthy habits. By teaching and guiding participants on the advantages to the overall health of a certain targeted behavior, the communication strategy seeks to promote behavioral change (Cristiani et al., 2021). Nevertheless, such instructional strategies typically result in a long-lasting, expanded basic understanding that does not, however, convert into real behavior modification. Direct behavior incentivization is a common component of incentives-based therapies, and it appears to have some effectiveness in fostering positive behavioral change. However, once the financial incentives are taken away, no significant effects of the financial incentives are identified in two meta-analyses of weight reduction and exercise treatments. Therefore, both kinds of treatments seem to be transient and do not result in long-lasting effects.
The scholarly dimension offers a number of significant solutions in this regard. For instance, Shavit et al. (2021) provide a novel kind of intervention program that encourages experimentation with fresh healthy options as opposed to rewarding consistent healthy behavior. The goal of this intervention is to assist participants in discovering new, enduring personal treasures – foods that are delicious and nutritious for them. The study’s results reveal that even a year after the program’s completion, individuals in the rewarded exploration group indicated eating more salads than those in the control group (Shavit et al., 2021).
References
Andrejs, E., Iveta, M., & Anete, D. (2013). Healthy alternatives of the Mediterranean diet in Latvia. Proceedings of the Latvian Academy of Sciences. Section B, Natural Sciences, 67(4–5), 315–319. Web.
Austin, D., May, J., Andrade, J., & Nichols, A. (2022). Exploring barriers, motivators and solutions to achieve a healthy lifestyle among undergraduate student nurses. British Journal of Nursing (Mark Allen Publishing), 31(4), 240–246. Web.
Bhatti, S., Leidi, A., Leake, D., & Li, J.-M. (2020). Studying biological science does not lead to adoption of a healthy lifestyle. Perspectives in Public Health, 140(4), 232–239.
Cristiani, V., Kumbamu, A., Asiedu, G. B., Johnson, S. K., Gewirtz O’Brien, J. R., Ziebart, Mogen, G. M., Lynch, B., & Kumar, S. (2021). Use of community based participatory research to design interventions for healthy lifestyle in an alternative learning environment. Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, 12. Web.
Doegah, P. T., & Acquah, E. (2022). Promoting healthy lifestyles among nurse trainees: Perceptions on enablers and barriers to dietary and physical activity behaviours. PloS One, 17(6), e0270353. Web.
Farhadnejad, H., Teymoori, F., Asghari, G., Mokhtari, E., Mirmiran, P., & Azizi, F. (2022). The higher adherence to a healthy lifestyle score is associated with a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes in Iranian adults. BMC Endocrine Disorders, 22(1), 42.
Keele, R. (2019). To role model or not? Nurses’ challenges in promoting a healthy lifestyle. Workplace Health & Safety, 67(12), 584–591.
Lianov, L. S., Fredrickson, B. L., Barron, C., Krishnaswami, J., & Wallace, A. (2019). Positive psychology in lifestyle medicine and health care: Strategies for implementation. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 13(5), 480–486.
López-Martínez, M. I., Miguel, M., & Garcés-Rimón, M. (2022). Protein and sport: Alternative sources and strategies for bioactive and sustainable sports nutrition. Frontiers in Nutrition, 9. Web.
Melnyk, B. M., Kelly, S. A., Stephens, J., Dhakal, K., McGovern, C., Tucker, S., Hoying, J., McRae, K., Ault, S., Spurlock, E., & Bird, S. B. (2020). Interventions to improve mental health, well-being, physical health, and lifestyle behaviors in physicians and nurses: A systematic review. American Journal of Health Promotion, 34(8), 929–941.
Myers, J., Fonda, H., Vasanawala, M., Chung, K., Segall, G., Chan, K., & Nguyen, P. (2019). PCI alternative using sustained exercise (PAUSE): Rationale and trial design. Contemporary Clinical Trials, 79, 37–43. Web.
Robson, M., & Riley, S. (2019). A Deleuzian rethinking of time in healthy lifestyle advice and change. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 13(4), 1–11. Web.
Sanders, G., Griffiths, C., Flint, S., Christensen, A., & Gately, P. (2021). Implementation fidelity of an Integrated Healthy Lifestyle Service: a process evaluation. Perspectives in Public Health.
Shavit, Y., Roth, Y., & Teodorescu, K. (2021). Promoting healthy eating behaviors by incentivizing exploration of healthy alternatives. Frontiers in nutrition, 8. Web.