HE100A: Lifestyle and Health Promotion Quiz

HE100A: Health Issues I - Lecture 5: Lifestyle and Health Promotion

• Disease Prevention: Preventative medicine focuses on identifying and managing early risk indicators to prevent illness, delay onset, and reduce severity. This involves three levels of prevention: primary, secondary, and tertiary.

Disease Prevention - Levels of Prevention

• Primary Prevention: Targets whole populations. Examples include immunization, safe sex practices, and promoting healthy eating habits.

• Secondary Prevention: Targets individuals at risk. Examples include diet interventions, smoking cessation programs, and diagnostic imaging.

• Tertiary Prevention: Targets patients with existing conditions. Examples include chemotherapy, bypass surgery, and pacemaker implantation.

Motor Vehicle Safety

• Primary Prevention Methods: Designed to benefit society as a whole. Include policies and regulations concerning safe speeds and standards for materials (e.g., seatbelts). These measures also emphasize driver training and licensing standards to assure a minimum competency level.

Fluoridated Drinking Water

• Primary Prevention Method: Naturally occurring fluoride in water, often supplemented, helps rebuild tooth enamel, reducing cavities and tooth decay, thereby lessening the need for extractions.

Disincentivizing Smoking

• Prevention Strategies: Primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention methods are used to disincentivize smoking. Public awareness campaigns, educational programs, and policies like increased taxes on tobacco products are examples.

• Adult Smoking Habits: Approximately 70% of adults who smoke express a desire to quit. Roughly 10% of those who want to quit are successful in doing so.

• Individual Support: Gum, patches, and other aids support smokers in quitting.

Relative Risk of Lung Cancer

• Dose-Dependent Relationship: The relative risk of lung cancer increases significantly with the duration of smoking. The graphic illustrates a clear, dose-dependent relationship.

Vaccinations

• Primary Prevention: Methods to benefit society by slowing the spread of pathogens. Preventing disease reduces healthcare costs and enhances overall well-being. Around 3 million deaths are prevented annually due to vaccinations.

• Secondary Prevention: Vaccines tailored to specific age groups can support individuals at risk of infection.

• Benefits: Can decrease viral load, minimize symptoms, and reduce mortality (even when transmission is possible).

Vaccination Coverage

• Global Data (2021): Vaccination statistics demonstrate global disparities in coverage levels.
• Source: WHO and UNICEF (2022)

Anxiety

• Factors Influencing Anxiety: Anxiety peaks when information is limited and potential costs are high. Examples include unfamiliar pathogens or situations, and lack of clear data concerning the illness.

• Dealing with Anxiety: Avoidance or desensitization (gradual exposure to situations/information) can mitigate anxiety in response to ambiguous situations.

Health Inequity

• Health Disparities: Preventable differences in disease burden, injury, or violence associated with social disadvantages in groups (due to social and geographical factors).

• Racial/Ethnic Groups: Display higher disease risks.

• Gender: Health outcomes vary as a function of occupational, social, and economic factors.

• Disability: Existing physical or mental conditions can limit access to resources and opportunities, creating health inequities.

Healthy Choices

• Individual Choices: Include improving life expectancy, optimizing physiology, strengthening the immune system, enhancing self-esteem and enhancing relationships.

• Population-Level Changes: Increased regulations of products and services reduce health costs leading to increased access to affordable preventative and treatment methods. The population is able to vote, protest, and lobby, to make societal changes leading to improved general well-being.

Health Promotion

• Process Definition: Empowering people to have more control over their health, thus improving their overall well-being.

• Challenges: 20% of Canadians exercise regularly, eat well, and maintain a healthy weight. This shows a significant challenge to improving general health.

• Support: Policies and programs promoting healthy behaviors can create the best conditions to encourage positive change.

Physical Activity

• Physical Benefits: Increased lifespan, muscle tone, reduced pain, improved blood flow, greater immunity, blood sugar control, improved bone density and enhanced strength.

• Mental Benefits: Reduced stress, increased attention, improved memory, improved mood, reduced anxiety, and greater self-esteem, better quality of life.

Barriers to Physical Activity

• Common Barriers: Lack of time, lack of motivation, financial limitations, lack of facilities, living conditions, low confidence, lack of skill, fear of injury, and long-term illness/disability.

Harms of Physical Inactivity

• Healthcare Burden: Sedentary lifestyles significantly burden healthcare systems.

• Increased Stress/Pain: Associated with increased rates of depression and chronic health conditions. This has a negative effect on muscles and musculoskeletal structures.

• Mortality: Regular physical activity reduces all-cause mortality by 35%.

Fitness

• Definition: Body functions efficiently, resists disease, enables vigorous tasks, and is capable of swift mobilization in an emergency.

• Health-Related Fitness: Focuses on disease prevention and health promotion.

• Benefits: Reduced risks of injury, illness, and premature death; a holistic approach to overall health.

Principles of Fitness

• Progression: Graded increase in duration and intensity (start slowly and gradually).

• Overload: Tying the body to a slightly increased demand to elicit change (uncomfortable, but effective).

• Specificity: Exercise needs to match the specific goal (e.g., running to train for a marathon).

• Recovery: Body needs time to rebuild and adapt to the stress of exercise.

• Safety: Exercise should be fun and enjoyable.

Preventing Injuries

• Warming Up/Down: Importance of gradually increasing and reducing exertion to prevent injury by preventing excessive stress on muscles and organs.

• Safety Equipment: Safety equipment is important but is not always a preventative measure alone, and paying attention to bodily cues. Environmental and weather conditions can increase injury risk.

Establishing Routines and Habits

• Gradually Increasing Activity: Taking small steps towards increasing physical activity, such as taking the stairs or short breaks during work.

• Regularization: Blocking time for physical activity to make it more routine.

• Data Collection: Tracking progress by using devices to measure exertion (e.g., apps and fitness equipment).

• Routine Diversity: Maintaining habits through variety in exercise.

Structuring Society for Fitness

• Environmental Factors: To support fitness, include verticality (high-density urban environments with stairs), walking spaces, bike lanes, and community spaces. Social events, festivals, and sporting events can also encourage movement.

• Planning for Fitness: City planning can incentivize walking and encourage active commuting.

• Cultural Influence: Cultural norms and taboos also strongly influence fitness.

Nutrition

• Nutritional Science: Focuses on the relationship between food components and bodily function.

• Nutrients: Essential chemical compounds in food to provide energy, support tissue structure and repair, and prevent malnutrition.

• Nutrient Classes: Includes water, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals.

Chemical Composition of the Human Body

• Major Components: Oxygen, water, carbon, protein, and other important elements/minerals make up the human body.

Macronutrients vs Micronutrients

• Macronutrients: Essential for supplying energy and structural support. (Fats, carbohydrates, proteins, and water).

• Micronutrients: Essential for optimal physiological function and disease prevention including vitamins and minerals.

Food Energy Storage

• Food Energy (Joules): Energy is present in food in the form of chemical potential energy.

• Food Energy Units: Energy from food measured in kilocalories (kcals) where 1 kcal = 1000 calories = 4.18 kJ (Units for energy).

• Energy Storage: Body stores energy as fat and glycogen.

Carbohydrates

• Definition: Glucose, sugars and starches

• Sources: Fruits, dairy, grains, legumes, vegetables

• Types: Simple and complex.

• Needs: Recommended daily intake based on size and metabolic rate.

Fats

• Definition: Lipids found in food that largely comes from triglycerides.

• Composition: Chains of carbon and hydrogen.

• Types: Saturated (solid at room temperature) and unsaturated (liquid at room temperature).

• Role: Essential for energy, insulation, cell membrane construction.

• Source: Meat, poultry, eggs, fish, dairy products, nuts, and seeds.

Proteins

• Definition: Chains of amino acids which the body uses to build materials for different functions.

• Composition: Amino acids.

• Sources: Meats, seafood, dairy, eggs, legumes, nuts, seeds, grains, and vegetables

• Role: Essential for body structure and function.

• Needs: Daily requirement based on size and activity level.

Vitamins and Minerals

• Definition: Body components, essential for bodily functions and preventing disease.

• Types: Water-soluble (e.g., B vitamins and vitamin C) and fat-soluble (e.g., vitamins A, D, E, and K).

• Sources: Numerous foods provide vitamins and minerals. Some foods are good sources for one particular macro or micronutrient.

• Needs: Daily needs vary by individual.

Vitamins & Minerals are Essential

• Examples of Vitamin/Mineral Deficiencies: Scurvy (vitamin C), Rickets (vitamin D), Blindness (vitamin A), and Osteoporosis (calcium).

Difficulty Regulating Diet

• Highly Personalized: Dietary needs and preferences can vary greatly from person to person, encompassing a diverse range of cultural influences.

Canada's Food Guide

• Visual Representation: A guide to help with balanced food choices.

Tufts Food Compass

• Food Ranking: A tool to provide nutritional information, showing how foods rank concerning nutritional value.

Bioaccumulation of Metals, Microplastics

• Bioaccumulation: Accumulation of toxic materials in tissues of organisms. The substance becomes more concentrated within organisms as you move up the food chain.