In recent years, there has been a growing interest in proactive interventions, prevention of diseases and promotion of good health. According to the Psychologist Sunshine Coast, many habits usually develop in childhood and begin to stabilize at 11 and 12. Wearing a seat belt, brushing one’s teeth and eating healthy are examples of these kinds of behaviours. Although a health habit may have developed because it was reinforced by specific positive outcomes, such as parental approval, it eventually becomes independent of the reinforcement process.
However, the Psychologist Sunshine Coast emphasizes that it is never too late to learn a health habit or to unlearn an unhealthy one. Numerous persons can relate success stories of how they learned health behaviours, such as wearing safety belts, exercising, stopping smoking or improving sexual health from peers.
Behaviour contributes to the burden of illness. For example the Human Sciences Research Council’s (HSRC) report on what have been recently called “preventable” disorders revealed that 1 in 4 cancer deaths in is related to smoking. The report further estimated that obesity and resultant over weight reduces life expectancy by between 3 and 13 years.
The same report noted that one third of all deaths are due to illnesses whose prevalence could be partly reduced by increased physical activity. Moreover, the HSRC report on the role of behaviour in diseases and disorder also revealed that 20-30% of all road accidents in can be partly attributed to excessive alcohol consumption. It is a well known fact that improving sexual health can reduce the number of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
While people may whole heartedly wish to change their unhealthy lifestyle, the initiation and maintenance of health behaviours result from an interaction of social, psychological, biological, and environmental factors. In recent years, the emerging discipline of Health Psychology has tried to explain why people engage in unhealthy behaviours and to inform the development of health and behaviour interventions.
Studies have shown that the intentions to change a behaviour while often a necessary factor of change may not be enough to bring about sustainable change. Starting and maintaining behavioural change can be assisted by psychological characteristics and processes.
These include the belief that one has the psychological resources to undertake the desired change and the individuaI’s ability to utilize self-monitoring strategies. Numerous studies have found that the impact of psychological interventions increased when supported by legislation that makes healthy choices easier.
This model states that whether a person practices a particular health behaviour can be understood by knowing two factors: – The degree to which a person perceives a personal health threat. The person’s perception of health threat is influenced by the person’s general health values for example one’s interest and concern about health, specific beliefs about vulnerability to a particular disorder, and beliefs about the consequences of the disorder.
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