Health Behavior Change Project

Health Behavior is an activity to maintain, accomplish or recapture great health and to avoid any type of illness. A few common health behaviors are working out regularly, eating a balanced diet, and getting necessary vaccinations. The Health Belief Model may be hypothetical show that can be utilized to direct health promotion and illness avoidance programs. It is used to clarify and foresee individual changes in health behaviors. It is one of the foremost broadly used models for understanding health behaviors.

The model is basically used on the four primary factors which are perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits and perceived barriers. Perceived susceptibility is described as individuals not willing to alter their health behaviors unless they accept that they are at risk. Perceived severity refers to a person’s sentiments in the reality of contracting on sickness or disease. Perceived benefits refer to a person’s perception of the effectiveness of various actions available to reduce the threat of illness or disease.

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Perceived barriers allude to a person’s sentiments on the obstacles to performing a suggested wellbeing action.

The main focus of my subject’s health behavior is diet. According to Miss Jacinta Chand, diet is the amount of food eaten or consumed by an individual or organism particularly nutritional consumption for purposes of health and weight control. Upon discussing with Miss Chand on her diet issues, she believes that her weight is a major increase which is 67kg at the moment comparing it with 3 years back which was 53kg.

She states that her choice of food has made a major impact in her life because most of the time she consumes fast food and does less physical activity. For breakfast she consumes either biscuits with tea or sometimes sandwiches, weetbix with coffee and if she gets late for classes, then during her break from 10-11am she consumes roti made from FMF flour enriched with iron vitamins and minerals with vegetable curries or meat as well. For lunch, she consumes homemade food at times and most of the time food from her campus or restaurants around Suva.

Moreover, Miss Chand drinks 1.5 litres of water per day because she believes that water acts as weight loss aid and it can help you eat less. For dinner, she likes to eat Punjas Jasmine Rice with whatever curry is made at home and consumes less roti during that meal time. She also loves to eat pizza a lot and most of the time she goes to wishbone with parents and sometimes friends to have dinner which includes pizza. According to her snacks category, she only consumes chocolates and potato chips most of the time with wedges included. In fruits she likes pineapple and guava the most and says that it helps in good digestion and loads body with nutrients. She believes that there is no chance of her to be obese and unhealthy because she is free from diseases but believes she could be one them later on because of not being able to choose right type of food. She says ‘‘appropriate diet plays a major role in one’s health and wellness’’.

According to perceived susceptibility, Miss Chand has not contracted any illness or disease so far but believes that her choice of food could lead her to NCD’s and too much of SOS consumption can cause troubles to her health and cause diabetes or even hypertension which she is scared off. Now she is planning to decrease fast food consumption by greater level in order to take care of her health. Conforming to perceived severity, Miss Chand believes that her choices of food will determine seriousness of her getting any disease in future. She believes know there will be change in her meals because improper diet can contribute to stress, tiredness and capacity to work at home or school with another major issue of illness and health problems arising. She states ‘‘if negative effects start showing, then it would be too late to realize so act know’’.

According to perceived benefits, Miss Chand thinks upon changing her diet she has seen bit fluctuations and ever since she started regular exercises back home. Now she suggest that we all should eat a lot of green veggies with more fruits combining with 30 minutes of physical activity at least 4-5 times week will help. She does not feel stressed in school and is active most of the time with no bodily pains. After these much of food consumption she feels positive about her health. According to perceived barriers, she suggests that obstacles that may affect her diet plan would be social media posts by restaurants for their promotion and also peer pressure would interfere her diet plan. She says that she will restrict such behaviors if she is really serious about her health. Clearly eat very less fast food and preferred food will be much veggies and fruits with a lot of water consumption.

Therefore, after having a great conversation with Miss Chand, I do predict that she will continue her diet plan of eating balanced meal and will engage herself in more physical activities. I also believe that her behavior towards health has changed and she has become a responsible individual in accordance to keep herself healthy at all times.