Community Nutrition PDF

(3) Community Nutrition  2 Health Promotion Some people do things that are not good for their health. They overeat, smoke, refuse to wear a helmet when riding a bicycle, never wear seat belts when driving...

(3) Community Nutrition  2 Health Promotion Some people do things that are not good for their health. They overeat, smoke, refuse to wear a helmet when riding a bicycle, never wear seat belts when driving, fail to take their blood pressure medication—the list is endless. These behaviors reflect personal choices, habits, and customs that are influenced and modified by social forces. Such “lifestyle behaviors” can be changed if the individual is so motivated. Educating people about healthful and unhealthful behaviors is one way to help them adopt positive health behaviors. Health promotion focuses on changing human behavior by 3 encouraging people to eat healthful diets, be active, get regular rest, develop leisure-time hobbies for relaxation, strengthen social networks with family and friends, and achieve a balance among family, work, and play. Health promotion The process of enabling people to achieve their maximum potential for good health. It is “the science and art of helping people change their lifestyle to move toward a state of optimal health.”  4 Behavior Change Behavior change is the desired outcome of a health promotion activity— what we call an intervention—aimed at a target audience. Interventions focus on promoting health and preventing disease and are designed to change a preexisting condition related to the target audience’s behavior. There are three types of prevention efforts, as shown in Figure 1. Primary prevention is aimed at preventing disease by controlling risk factors 5 that are related to injury and disease. Heart-healthy cooking classes, for example, help people change their eating and cooking patterns to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease. Secondary prevention focuses on detecting disease early through screening and other forms of risk appraisal. Public screenings for hypertension at a health fair identify people whose blood pressure is high; these individuals are then referred to a physician or other health professional for follow-up and treatment. Tertiary prevention aims to treat and rehabilitate people who have experienced an illness or injury.  FIGURE (1) The Health Continuum and Types of Prevention to Promote Health and 6 Prevent Disease Source: Adapted from National Public Health Partnership, Preventing Chronic Disease: A Strategic Framework Background Paper (National Public ground Paper Health Partnership: Melbourne, Australia), 2001, 6.  7 Education programs for people recently diagnosed with diabetes help prevent further disability and health problems, such Education Programs as blindness and end-stage renal disease, from arising from the condition and improve overall health.  8 Prevention has become increasingly important as the medical community moves away from conventional medicine, which focuses on diagnosing and treating diseases, to a holistic approach that encompasses all aspects of the health spectrum. Many questions about why people make the choices they make remain unanswered, but the ways to promote good health are widely recognized. Born of decades, if not centuries, of scientific observation and testing, the strategies for promoting good health are outlined in Table (2). Although these strategies seem relatively straightforward, putting them into practice is a major challenge for most communities and nations.  9 TABLE 2. Ways to Promote Good Health  10 Health for All When translating the global goal of “health for all” into action at the local level, one challenge is to understand the many physical, biological, social, and behavioral factors that influence the health of individuals and communities. Another challenge is to change human behavior. Nations differ in how they formulate health objectives in an effort to help their people achieve behavior change, although there are common themes. Working groups in the European Region of the WHO, for example, outlined the following prerequisites for health:  11 Freedom from the fear of war “the most serious of all threats to health”. Equal opportunity for all peoples. The satisfaction of basic needs for food, clean water and sanitation, decent housing, and education. The right to find meaningful work and perform a useful role in society. Dr. Mohamed Naeem