The Health Dimension
Conceptual Matrix to Learning
Because health is subjective, we must personally determine our state of health based on what we know, how we feel, whether we are able to meet reasonable expectations of society, and whether we are satisfied with our quality of life.
Here health is addressed as an asset and a privilege. Health professionals and community stakeholders play a role in promoting it, teaching it, modeling it in their lifestyle, and by innovating and participating in health-related interventions.
Modeling It -- Focus is on personal health choices that display our attitudes toward health and quality of life.
Teaching It -- Seizing opportunities in personal and professional roles to educate others about body requirements, disease and accident prevention, and quality of life. This website is organized so that you have both the theory and practice resources in whole health--body, mind/emotional, spiritual, and social aspects.
Interventions & Strategies -- Successful programs or services, and those with the potential of success, are showcased here.
- Taking Control, a mixed media tobacco cessation case management system (CMATCH) is described and available for participation.
NUTRITION SPOTLIGHT
- Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
- Power Plate - to help you plan a nutritious, disease-fighting menu
- Nourished by Nutrition blogs
- Healthy Recipes!
- Beverages
- Vegetable Partners
- Iron-Rich Foods
- Wraps and How to Do It
- Choose My Plate for a wealth of basic nutrition information
An extensive Health Promotion textbook:
"Health Promotion and Disease Prevention for Advanced Practice: Integrating Evidence-based Lifestyle Concepts"
More Dimensions of Health - 3
Nutritional Management & Food Security
This case study addresses personal weight management challenges in the context of current concerns of hungering sub-populations on a global scale, corporate hubris, increasing obesity and the attendant consequential health insults, and stewardship of resources. Following the introduction of factors which exert tremendous impact on society and, by extension, individuals, you will be given a scenario with which to imaginatively apply theory sources.
A. Factors that influence Agribusiness (or industry)
- Since the birth of the industrial era, followed by international conflicts in which land was destroyed and populations moved, the U.S., because of its rising power in technology and productivity, held forth with the mantra that we must “feed the world.” Large monopoly farm conglomerates began to share the land with small family farms, subsequently followed by large food-processing plants and manufacturing plants to serve them. Grains, meat, packaged foods, and other natural products were shipped to other countries—then as interventions for hunger, now more so as objects of trade. Admittedly, that early philanthropic mission intent has been specious. And we are blessed in the ability to aid other countries in the name of democracy. It also strengthened our political role as a superpower in the world and brought great profits to the companies involved, leading eventually to a spirit of greed for some.
- Trade of agribusiness products has become so immense and remote that we now experience an uncertainty of food quality due to:
- The distance of food sources and the time in transport (in spite of refrigeration and other preservative techniques)
- The weaknesses in public health standards in other countries
- Our limited ability to examine all food stuffs brought in
- Local warehousing and shipping conditions
- Productivity-driven crop and livestock management practices such as:
- Genetic modifications
- Pesticides
- Herbicides
- Fertilizers
- Use of antibiotics and hormones in animals, poultry, and fish
- Warehousing of large numbers of livestock, poultry, and fish
- Environmental and cultural challenges to households in obtaining, storing, and using food:
- With an increasingly diverse society, cultural food preferences may be challenged by availability
- Resources for storing food in an economical method may be thwarted
- To avoid eating processed and packaged foods, individuals in some communities do not have access to fresh food markets or to resources for doing their own gardening.
- Purchasing fresh, non-tainted food (organic) may be prohibitive in cost
- Widespread distracting advertising of non-healthy or less healthy foods influence decisions and subsequent purchase of food supplied.
- Personal challenges to eating a healthy diet are:
- Lack of education concerning nutritional choices and healthy meal-planning. This may arise at the high school level where there is a lack of good basic nutrition course; or it may begin with poor orientation to decision making skills and critical thinking as early as elementary school.
- The individual’s poor self-regard, or feelings of worth – an emotional intelligence deficit
- Lack of vision, purpose of life, of hope
- Dependency on others
- Mobility deficits for physical activity
I am sure you can think of more factors and, perhaps, even disagree with some I have mentioned. These are ideas born of time and observation that are meant to stir your thinking about the background to reticence and resistance of individuals to change lifestyle behavior into a healthy quality of life.
Seeking Solutions Using Practiced Theory
If you have already viewed the case study on Nicotine Addiction, you will be familiar with how you might plan an intervention for change using the theories and concepts from Volume I as guides or structures in your choices. I provide you with a variety of options for characteristics in the scenario below with which to create your own family scenario and develop an intervention for weight loss/management, general health, and food security strategies for changing behaviors. You can see that motivational interviewing will require creative means to gain attention from this family.
- Family of 5: Mother, Dad, boys 4 and 7, and girl 11.
- Their culture may be (1) Caucasian/European, (2) Mexican-American, (3) Haitian.
- Father is an (1) over-the-road (long-distance) truck driver, (2) realtor, (3)construction foreman of commercial buildings.
- Mother is an (1) elementary school teacher, (2) quality control manager for a food processor, (3) receptionist for a dental practice.
- They live in the suburbs of a small city (80,000).
- Mother is 100# overweight with apparent little concern for losing it.
- Father is normal weight, but takes medication for hypertension and elevated cholesterol.
- Youngest child goes to day care during the day while mother is at work; other children attend public schools.
- Daughter is 40# overweight, receives critical comments from the boys at school, is shy and quietly angry, has limited social life—watches TV a lot.
- 4 year-old boy is asthmatic.
- 7 year-old boy like to write songs on the computer, not engaged in sports, rides his bike sometimes.
- Family eats take-out or micro-wave suppers during the week; don’t have fruit out on the counter nor fresh veggies in the fridge, sodas are readily available, as are processed sandwich foods.
Learn More
How would you intervene as a health professional in this case study to enhance quality of life in the family?