Chapter 1

While reading chapter one there were more than one really important aspects that stuck out to me. The first one being “what influences your health?”, when I think about that I thought that mental was one of the only things to play a really big role. After reading chapter one I learned there are about five determinants of health that was told in Healthy People 2020. The first one is biology and genetics, this is the part that allows you to see the things you can’t change such as your gender or age. It opens you up to realizing that family history and genes also affect your health such has if both parents are diabetics you could most likely become one. When I look at how this affects my health aspect my mom was diabetic due to being overweight so she had to lose about 50lbs in order to be healthy. So it makes me realize staying healthy is something I need to do to avoid that happening to myself.

Another determinant is Individual behavior it is considered a modifiable behavior, if you do not like how you look if you have the right mindset to go to the gym often and eat healthy you can change your look. Where biology and genetics is non-modifiable because you can’t change your age or gender. Social factors play a big role if you do not live in a safe neighborhood and can’t afford to go to the gym you can’t exercise outside. Thankfully in my neighborhood I have the beach near by and can take my dog on walks to help myself stay healthy. Leaving you with not many options for you to stay physically fit. Health services is a big one, in low income areas with the high crime rate some doctors offices are no where close allowing you to not get the proper health care. Lastly policymaking helps in cases where if someone is smoking that is seriously bad for there health. Having signs up to ban smoking and laws can help with peoples health.

Chapter one also talked about mindfulness and how it can influence your health, when i thought of that i always thought about yoga and meditation. When relating to to my choice of wanting to exercise more yoga could really be a good choice for me. With the stress of work and school yoga is a way to exercise and relax my mind all at the same time. There’s a yoga studio about five minutes from my house that I could go to and try it out. Determinants of health such as individual behavior is wanting to exercise and wanting to make the choice to be healthy and eat healthy. I plan on using the determinants to help me in my favor to my healthy life style.

Something else that stuck out to me in chapter one was how to improve your health behaviors. When thinking about how i plan to exercise more and eat better it is going to take preparation it won’t happen over night. In this chapter it explains how you can use the acronym SMART which means, specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, and time-oriented. This would play a big role in helping me organize my health plan so i can start to take action. I’ve never been one to just think it and do it I need to write it down and organize it. SMART is defiantly something that I plan to use.