Factors Affecting Health and Well-Being.

by noraalaishotmailcouk (student)

Task 2 – Factors effecting health and well- being

Many different factors affect a person’s health and well-being. Health and well-being mean different things to different people. According to the Oxford dictionary, health is ‘the state of being free from an illness or a disease’ and well-being means ‘the state of being comfortable, healthy or happy.’ A person’s social, economic, cultural and physical environment in how people live their lives has a huge effect on their health and well-being. However a person’s genetics and behaviour also play a significant part in determining an individual’s health and well-being. Good health starts at where we live, where and how we work and learn and where to play.

Lifestyle

Diet

Diet is a crucial part of the way a person chooses to live their life. It is essential a person has a balanced diet because it has a huge effect on their lives. A balanced diet is a diet that consists of the right nutrients in the right quantities for healthy growth and repair. The Eat Well plate shows the proportions of food groups that should be eaten daily in a well-balanced diet. The east well plate shows that a healthy diet should be high in both fruit and vegetables, and in starchy foods such as bread and pasta. It shows that you should have a smaller amount of dairy products such as milk and cheese and also have sources of protein like meat and fish within your diet. Foods that have are high in sugar or fat are needed in much smaller amounts such as chocolate and crisps. A balanced diet consist of six food groups which are, Carbohydrates, Proteins, Fats, Fibres, Minerals and Vitamins. Carbohydrates are made from simple sugars such a glucose which is used to give us a high amount of energy. Carbohydrates are found in foods such as potatoes, bread, pasta and chocolate. Proteins are made from amino acids which help us with our growth and repair. They are found in eggs, fish, turkey and cheese which all contain high amounts of protein. Fats are made from fatty acids and glycerol which gives an individual a high energy source; butter, ice cream, chocolate and pizza. Fibres help to prevent constipation, heart disease and diabetes. They are found in breads, cereals and fruits. However, there are three types of minerals which don’t provide an individual with energy. The three types of minerals are: iron which is good for the blood, calcium which is good for your bones and magnesium which is good for your nerves. All these three types of minerals are found fruits and vegetables. In order to have a balanced diet, vitamins are vital because they are good for our skin, bones, and teeth. Vitamins include vitamin A, B, C, D and E. Vitamins can be found in many products such as butters, milk, eggs, fresh fruit and vegetables. We also need water as part of our diet because we take it in when we eat and drink. Water is important for many different reasons such as chemical reactions take place in our cells when we drink water.

Having an unbalanced diet can have a huge effect on a person’s health and can carry out health risks. An unbalanced diet includes too much or too little of the recommended food group which can cause a person to become malnourished. An unbalanced diet can lead to health problems such as having high blood pressure, tooth decay, diabetes and heart disease. However the most common health problem is obesity. Obesity is when a person is overweight with a high degree of body fat. Being overweight can create people suffering from diabetes, arthritis, heart disease and breast cancer. On average a physically active man needs around 2,500 calories per day, while a woman needs 2,000. If we eat any more, the extra energy is stored for later use, mostly as fat. A person can become underweight because they have low self-esteem or a poor self-image which will influence their body weight. Being underweight or overweight can put people at risk of dying.

Exercise

Exercise is very important to keep your body working effectively as it can help improve a person’s health and fitness. According to the NHS, if a person wants to improve their general health, adults should do a minimum of 30 minutes of intense exercise for 5 days a week. If a person doesn’t exercise on a regular basis it can lead to chronic disease and obesity. A person takes part in team sports or games it can improve their social, mental and physical health. It can improve their social health because they’re meeting new people so they’re able to make new friends and socialise with people. Exercising can also improve someone’s mental health because it can help an individual to lose weight, improve their posture and body shape so they can be more confident about their shape. Exercising also has mental benefits as it can improve an individual’s confidence and relieve their stress/tension so it can make them feel good. If an individual doesn’t exercise it can lead a person to being overweight which means they have a higher risk of developing heart disease, strokes and diabetes. Exercise has many benefits to it, for example it can promote good sleeping habits, reduce both stress and depression. Exercising can also lead to suppleness and stamina as well as improving a person’s respiratory, cardiovascular and circular system. Exercise can help to prevent many diseases such as bowel cancer as exercise can speed up the path of food through the colon so it will prevent constipation. If a person exercises on a regular basis and eats sensibly it is more likely the person has good health. There are many different types of ways to exercise such as running, swimming, walking and cycling.

Exercise is necessary in order to stimulates the body’s own natural maintenance and repair their system. A persons bones, joints and muscles and especially their heart, will all stay stronger if they keep them busy. However if a person is not physically active it can increase health risks in many ways. It can have huge risks to a person because it can increase their chances of being overweight, having strokes, high bloody pressure, coronary heart disease and a flabby body. It can also mean that a person has a poorer posture, stiffer joints, little energy and osteoporosis. Not exercising can ...

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Substance Abuse

Substance abuse, which is also known as drug abuse, is when the user consumes the substance in amounts or with methods which are harmful to themselves or others. Drug abuse such as smoking and alcohol are used for mood-altering purposes. Many people think that substance abuse is referring to the use of drugs which isn’t always the case. For example, alcohol, solvents, both prescribed and over-the-counter medication, inhalants and even coffee and cigarettes can all be used to harmful extent.

Alcohol is the most common drug used out of all of them. People drink because it can help them to forget about their problems and feel happy for a while. For example, a homeless man would drink because it would help him forget that he is sleeping on the streets. Alcohol can have huge effects on a person such as giving them blurred vision, slurred speech, difficulty walking, and impaired memory and slowed reaction times. High doses of alcohol can give cause vomiting and difficulties breathing, put you in a coma, cause you to become unconscious or blackout and even can cause death.

Smoking is also one of the most common drug abuses. Poorer people are more likely to smoke because they feel it can help them relieve their stress and help them to cope with their lifestyles. However richer people smoke fewer cigarettes compared to the poorer people and were less likely to be addicted because richer people may not have as great a need for an escape from their problems. According to the Acheson report in 1996 they found that 26% of men and 28% of women smoked. However only 2% of professional men and 11% of professional women compared with 41% of unskilled men and 36% of unskilled women smoked. Smoking can be very addictive because it contains nicotine. Nicotine is a drug that is a stimulant and a depressant. It reaches the brain in 7 seconds and its aim is to make you feel “good”. Smoking has both short and long term effects which can affect an individual’s health. The short term effects of smoking are that it can cause you to have bad breath and smelly clothes from the smoke. Some of the long term effects are it can cause you to have wrinkles, bad skin, yellow teeth and yellow nails. It also reduces a person’s athletic performance because there isn’t enough oxygen in the body.

People who depend on the substance become addicted and can have a huge effect on their health. Addiction is when an individual becomes addicted to a particular substance. Different drugs produce different physical effects but all abused substances have one thing in common which is they all alter the way the brain looks and functions. Substance abuse doesn’t only affect your brain but it doesn’t allow an individual’s brain to function and think at the same time.

Recreational activities

Recreational activities are essential for good health because they help to keep our mind working effectively. They are doing activities of leisure and often done for enjoyment, pleasure and referred to as fun. Recreation activates can be anything such as swimming, reading, listening to music, joining a gym, golf club or doing yoga. However if money is tight then it can be very difficult to enjoy any recreational activities. Not all recreational activates are good for you. There are some recreational activities such as gambling, drinking and taking part in criminal activities e.g. stealing, can all have a huge effect on a person’s health and well-being. If a person does these activities it

Recreational activities can reduce stress and can help take your mind of problems and allow an individual to release all their tension. However people who can’t afford to enjoy any recreation could feel that they are never allowed an opportunity to get ‘away from it all’, thereby deny their opportunity more.

In order to stay healthy or to improve health, people should aim to be regularly active. To stay healthy, adults should do at least 150 minutes of exercise

If an individual does regular moderate intensity physical activity such as cycling or walking or participating in any ports then it will have substantial benefits for their health. This can reduce the risks of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, colon and breast cancer, and depression. This can also decrease the risk of a hip or vertebral fracture and help control an individual’s weight.

Social factors

Family

A family could have a lot of influence over an individual’s health and well-being. For example if a person has inherited a disease it could have a huge effect of their lives. Also if a person was born into a single-parent household then they might be in a low social-economic group. However if a person was born into a deprived background could live in a substandard housing with poor-quality food because they have a low income. This means that physical health of family is related to the families’ economic situation by their eating habits and type of housing. Attitudes towards health are usually learnt throughout the family, for example if the parents are afraid to go to the dentist then there’s a more likely chance that

There are four aspects of health, physical, intellectual, social and emotional. These effects can have both negative and positive effects to an individual and their health. One of the positive effects of physical affects is that a family could feed an individual so they can’t keep control of their own diet and watch what they’re eating. However a negative effect is that letting your family feed you could affect your diet and could potentially physically abuse you. One of the positive intellectual effects could be individual’s parents/older brothers or sisters might motivate them to do well in life or could help with specific homework. However a negative intellectual effect could be younger brothers and sisters might distract a member of the family from doing homework/work. Another negative effect could be family can also teach other members in the family to do wrong things such as smoking and drinking. A negative emotional effect to family can be them constantly putting an individual down for the way they look so they will then feel distressed and upset. However a positive effect is a person’s family can love and support them no matter how they look. They may also teach them how they can manage their emotions. Finally a positive social effect on a family is that the individual is allowed to socialise with people from different cultures where they can gain strong friendships with. This will limit the chances of the individual becoming depressed. However a negative effect is that an individual’s parents might not let them leave the house which means they can’t socialise with other people and could become isolated.

Culture

A person’s culture can be very influential to their health and well-being. Culture refers to a person’s beliefs, values and ways of behaving shared by members of the community. A person’s culture can forbid him or her from wearing certain types of clothing, drinking alcohol and having sexual intercourse before marriage. The genetics of a person’s ethnicity may put them at a higher risk of catching a disease. However some diseases occur more often to certain groups of people rather than the general population. An example is in the African population people are very immune to Malaria. Malaria is caused by blood parasites transmitted from person through the bites of infected mosquitoes which can cause death if the individual doesn’t get prompt and effective treatment. The African Region accounts for 85% of malaria cases and 90% deaths worldwide. Another example is in India many people are prone to dengue fever which is a mosquito-borne disease which is cause by the dengue virus. There are many symptoms to dengue fever such as fever, headaches, skin rash and muscle and joint pains. This shows that a individuals health could not be effected by their cultural but not for the better. However not all people in that ethnic group are immune to the diseases. Sometimes people can also get the diseases if they are not from the ethnic group but they’re going there to visit the country. People can reduce the risks of catching these diseases by having a vaccination.

Due to different peoples cultures, discrimination characterise the treatment these people receive. This can affect a person’s health massively because some cultures and religions forbid people to use certain types of drugs and medication which mean they will experience poorer health, have reduced life expectancy and have greater problems accessing health compared to the rest of the population. For example, a Jehovah witness which a members of a Christian- based religious movement. Jehovah witness is best known for their door-to-door evangelistic work. Jehovah witness maintains that the spirit is the blood and therefore it is acceptable to perform blood transfusions and organ transplantations. However this could therefore cause serious health risks for the patient if there isn’t any other options that could perform the same outcome which can be life threatening.

People from certain cultures also can impose different types of certain behaviours on other people in their culture group. For example, young people who are are growing up in binge drinking culture think they will have to do the same in order to be accepted by other people.

Social class

Social class refers to the social and economic state of a person. If a person lives in an area where there is ‘high socio-economic’ community it would mean they have good incomes, easy access to health care and the crime rates aren’t high so it’s a safer place to live in. It also means that education I easy to access for both children and adults. For higher socio-economic groups their nutrition and housing would be better because they have a better income compared to people in the lower socio-economic. People who have a good income are less likely to worry about being able to cope with everyday life. They don’t experience the same stress as people who are worried about having to pay rent and feed children. The higher the social class the fewer the deaths from diseases such as lung disease, CHD and ext. For the ‘higher socio-economic’ groups money for recreational activities would improve their quality of life because this would create the ‘feel good’ factor for them.

However there are some people who live in areas where there is no health care, the crime rates are extremely high and they don’t have access to health care or education. In the ‘lower socio-economic’ groups there is a higher employment rate but there is a lower income so people would be working for long hours but wouldn’t get paid enough. This can also affect individual’s health hugely because it would be very hard to access heath area in these areas. For example, if an individual has a heart attack then by the time they get to the nearest hospital it might be too late so it can result to devastating consequences. Another example could be a person who has cancer who is living in a low socio-economic community will need regular treatments in order to cure the disease.

How can unemployment affect an individual’s health?

Unemployment occurs when a person who is searching for employment isn't able to find work which can have huge effects to an individual’s health. This can cause an individual to become very stressed which can affect a person’s health as it can cause aches and pains, diarrhoea and constipation, nausea, demonises, chest pain, rapid heartbeat and frequent colds. These issues can inhibit from someone finding a job because they're long term affects. If I person is unemployed then they will have think about ways they can provide for themselves such as paying bills and buying food. By being employed and earning money it allows individuals to socialise such as doing fun things, buy new clothes, buy any medication that they need, look after them and have a nice environment to live in . However if individuals don't have a job then they aren't able to afford things that are important for their health. Unemployment can cause individuals to become bored because they will find that the days are become longer and find it more difficult to get out of bed. It can also cause individuals to become depressed because they may start to feel low or up and feel as if they're a failure; they may also start to feel that there is something wrong with them so they might begin to feel suicidal. Unemployment makes people have lower self-esteem because it gives individuals a sense of belonging, worth and that you're contributing something meaningful to the community. However being unemployed can make you feel the opposite.

This situation becomes worse if families are involved because the person has to think about more than one person who could cause them to become more stressed and even suffer from insomnia. This would result a person lacking sleep which can cause them to become byre grumpy and miserable which could lead to family breakdowns and even depression. This would be very hard to escape one in it because the person might give up and think there is no point in trying to find a job which can have serious long term health consequences.

It is very important for unemployed people to seek help and advice straight away so they have support through this difficult time. Getting help will ensure their health can be the best it can be and hopefully help them find a job and then their health and well-being will be under control.

How can divisibility affect a person’s health?

In order to stay well and active and play a part of the community, individuals need health care and health programs for the same reasons as anyone does. Being healthy means the same to a lot of people, getting and staying well so they can leafy full and active lives. This means that in order to make healthy choice and know how to prevent illnesses they need to have the right tools and information. There have been many studies which have shown that individuals with disabilities are more likely to have a poorer overall health, less access to adequate health care and are more likely to smoke which are factors that can affect an individual’s health.

Being disabled can have huge effects to their health in a number of ways. Firstly, a person’s disability may not allow them to access certain places, for example in doctors surgery there might be a step into the reception which may not be accessible to people on wheelchairs. This can affect their health because it means that they would have to travel to find a surgery which has access so they can seek the help they need. This may cause the patient to feel embarrassed because they couldn't get into their local doctors surgery which may make them not want to find another doctors surgery encase the same issue arise.

People who have disabilities often have a higher risk for grater health problems. As a result of having a type of disability, such as a spinal cord injury, spinal bifida, or multiple sclerosis, other physical or mental health conditions can occur. Some of these other health conditions are also called secondary conditions and might include:

Bowel or bladder problems: this could be due to a person having to hold to go to the toilet as they aren’t able to go on their own and don’t want to seek for help.
Fatigue: this is the feeling of tiredness, wariness or lack of energy which can affect the way a person thinks and feels and also interfere with a person’s daily living activities.
Injury: any individual who has difficulty when walking or have weak muscles may be prone to falling other which can cause them serious injuries.
Mental health and depression: an individual with a disability may feel very sad that this has happened to them and has changed their life so it can lead to depressions and many other different forms of mental illnesses.
Overweight and obesity: if a person is in a wheelchair and they are unable to move their legs then it would be easier for them to gain weight as they are unable to take part in physical activities which over a long period of time can result in obesity.

Quality of life

Quality of life refers to the general well-being of an individual and society. This includes all social, emotional, economical, and physical aspects of an individual’s life.

Ill-health can have a negative impact on an individual’s quality of life as it can be debilitating

If an individual is ill then it can affect other aspects of their life. It could affect a person’s job as they might be too ill to go to work,