There are several questions about health practices that many people may not comprehend
In a broader sense, health behavior refers to an individual's, group's, or organization's action, as well as the determining causes, correlates, and costs of that action, which may include social changes, policy formation and implementation, and improved quality of life. This is similar to the concept of personal health behavior provided by numerous authors such as Franco et al. (2015), which includes both visible, obvious acts as well as mental events and emotional states that anybody may report and assess. Most researchers define health behavior as various personal attributes like beliefs, expectations, intentions, morals, acuities, and other rational elements; character traits, actions, and practices that are in some way related to health upkeep, restoration, and development.
Behaviors that relate to health
Behaviors that relate to health are some of the most essentials in the health and well-being of individuals. The significance of health-related behaviors has been on the rise as sanitation has developed and medicine has advanced. Diseases that were at some point in the past incurable or deadly are in the present day preventable as some can even be fruitfully treated, and behaviors that are related to peoples' well-being has turned to be a major feature of both personal and public health. The improvement of any health-related behavior is, hence, vital to the health activities of an individual and the public in general. The one essential personal health behavior that I have been practicing and feel like changing is how I take my exercise in the sense that I need to increase the time I set aside for my exercises to allow me exercise more.
Role of Social Determinants in Increasing Exercise
For a long period, the sport has continued to be of great importance. It is good for health and fitness besides being helpful in a whole lot of other areas (Franco et al., 2015). Sport entails various forms of physical activities which, employing casual involvement, aims at using, maintaining or improving physical fitness and offer entertainment to those that take part in it. To increase my involvement in physical activities, various factors will play a significant role in shaping this very health-related behavior, and this includes social determinants.
To begin with, family influences will help me in ensuring that I appropriately change my exercise behavior.
This is because trying to find out how my family members think about my desire to change my exercise behavior will to some extent model my interests and abilities, reinforce my behavior, and provide activity prompts. As past studies reveal, activity molding and support by the parents are predominantly resilient predictors of later exercise involvement by the children. It is also true to argue that a teenager's participation in physical activity on the outside settings may be influenced more by the peers than close family members. Peers can be helpful in exerting the social influences to exercise more as they tend to offer models for exercise-related attitudes and activities.
Role of Individual Level Constructs In Increasing Exercise
Different activities call for different skills for continued involvement. For example, the commitment necessary to plan for a 45-minute jog before breakfast is possibly not as much as that needed to join a local health organization and make the desired preparations to jog for 45 minutes several times on a weekly basis. The behavioral differences between daily life and pre-set activities usually have different occurrence patterns. Therefore, well laid behavioral skills will be useful in shaping required lifestyle activity patterns which are simply routine physical activities.
While both active and inactive individuals regard the physical activity as a positive health behavior the beliefs about health and exercise play a pivotal role in shaping this very conduct. For instance, an individual who intensely values exercise, who has the belief that he or she has the authority as far as health outcomes are concerned, and who expects personal health benefits from exercises is the most certain to take part in even many physical activities (Hills, Dengel, & Lubans, 2015).Through long-term exercise goals that relate to a person's well-being and general fitness, it is more likely for one to continue participating as compared to when one has short-term exercise goals. This is true even though flexible day to day goals may somehow bring about increased maintenance of participation.
Additionally, physical activities produce results that may, in one way or the other, encourage or discourage consequent involvement. For example, apparent discomfort in the course of any exercise program, irrespective of physical exertion, may make an individual drop out from undertaking following physical activities. As far as the intention of physical activity is concerned, it is argued that a good number of highly committed exercisers might deploy exercises as a coping strategy for various forms of stress, particularly mental stress, as well as positive feelings that come about when one exercise.
Role of Community Level Constructs In Increasing Exercise
When it comes to the role that community level constructs play when it comes to increasing physical activities, it should not be forgotten that access to facilities is an essential but scarce facilitator that determines how the entire community take part in exercises (Sparling, Howard, Dunstan, & Owen, 2015). As opposed to discoveries that have been made in past studies about clinical exercise courses, those participating in unsupervised physical activities who live closer to the exercise settings have been revealed to be the most likely group to drop out, claiming that they identify inconvenience as the key reason that brings about their return to dormancy (Sparling, Howard, Dunstan, & Owen, 2015). Moreover, those who are already active are also thrice as likely as the group that is not active to have the feeling that greater accessibility of resources would lead to an increment in their participation on the same. The active group is also most likely to have the belief that a relatively more flexible work schedule would make them participate in exercise increasingly.
On the constructs and levels of influence that have the strongest effect on my exercise as a form of health behavior
I believe that my intentions, personal capabilities, behavioral skills, commitments, and reinforcement with regards to exercising more do play a pivotal role in shaping my behavior. For instance, through family influences, one can ensure that he or she appropriately changes the exercise behavior as this is what will model a person's interests and abilities, reinforce my health behavior, and much more (Sparling, Howard, Dunstan, & Owen, 2015). People of the same age group can be helpful in exerting the social influences to exercise more as they tend to offer concepts for exercise-related attitudes and activities.
In conclusion
the best intervention that did help in changing my health behavior of exercising more was that of seeking for guidance and counseling from my parents and teachers alike. This fact made me more confident about what I wanted to do with my life with regards to how I examined the preferences for the types and intensities of activity formed and the manner in which they were likely to influence my future activities. Because exercising brings forth with it numerous physical, health-related and emotional benefits, every single individual should take the necessary intervention to make sure that he or she can set up suitable strategies aimed at increasing physical activities in the community in general.
It is important to note that motivation is something that tends to wane quickly especially if one has not done regular exercises and following healthy eating plans a habit in the past. Having to change bad habits, particularly in instances when they are probably related to unhealthy eating and inadequate exercise is extremely hard. But, that is not going to be who I am from today henceforth as I want to start a journey that will eventually change my attitude towards how I take my exercises. It goes without saying that this will only be realized provided that I keep my motivation higher than it was before. Two of the great means through which I will be able to keep my motivational levels higher include having to identify the most suitable individual who will help "feed" me more motivation- one capable of enhancing different sorts of mentoring.
Reference
Franco, M. R., Tong, A., Howard, K., Sherrington, C., Ferreira, P. H., Pinto, R. Z., & Ferreira, M. L. (2015). Older people's perspectives on participation in physical activity: a systematic review and thematic synthesis of qualitative literature. Br J Sports Med, bjsports-2014.
Hills, A. P., Dengel, D. R., & Lubans, D. R. (2015). Supporting public health priorities: recommendations for physical education and physical activity promotion in schools. Progress in cardiovascular diseases, 57(4), 368-374.
Sparling, P. B., Howard, B. J., Dunstan, D. W., & Owen, N. (2015). Recommendations for physical activity in older adults. BMJ: British Medical Journal (Online), 350.
