Better Health Essay (Assessment 2)

“Good Health is your Responsibility. Act Now”

In achieving good health, it is an individual’s responsibility to take care of their own body. A large extent of factors cannot be controlled ^[1]. These include the determinants of health – individual, socio-cultural, socio-economic and environmental aspects and modifiable and non-modifiable characteristics.

An individual’s determinants of health are obvious factors that contribute to good health. Over long term, knowledge, skills, attitudes and genetics will pose a major influence on the individual that will help them sustain a healthy behaviour to achieve the best lifestyle. From surveys shown, it has found that “14% of Australian’s approve of smoking” and “nearly 50% of women could not identify age as a risk factor for breast cancer” ^[2]. This suggests that people are not recognising the important health messages or developing greater knowledge in realising issues that may be affecting them. So it is important for us to understand how much control we have over our health with our individual determinants as the attitudes and skills we gain will put an image to others on our view of health.

The socio-cultural factor which includes family, peers, media, religion and culture will greatly manipulate how we can be responsible for our health. The family is the most important source of education and role modelling where we learn the fundamental skills, values and beliefs about ourselves ^[2]. They are crucial in helping set up for the future and how we behave. In the Australian culture, we are also influenced by peers, media and religion which will deter us from keeping responsibility over our health. It’s harder during adolescent years to make decisions, as you are often influenced by others and the media health ^[2]. However, as you grow older and understand the consequences to health, you will make the right decisions. Hence, it is an individual’s control over how they want to respond to their health even with the socio-cultural factors.

The socio-economic aspects of life which relate to employment, education and income can affect one’s health as the lower socio-economic status (SES) can lead to long term and difficult issues to overcome. There is evidence that the “poorer socioeconomic groups tend to have poorer nutrition, less physical activity, greater prevalence of smoking and more damaging patterns of alcohol use” ^[3]. This is suggesting that the lower SES, the harder it is to cope with society. Considering an individual’s way of living, the education they receive will lead on to the type of employment they will get and how much income they will gain ^[5]. This shows that one thing will lead on to another limiting them from achieving the ‘perfect health’. Overall, it is hard for an individual with a low SES status to ‘get out of trouble’ but it is still there overall responsibility to find help to overcome these difficult issues.

The environmental factors which include geographic location, access to health services and technology play a role in broadening our knowledge and influencing our health and wellbeing ^[2]. For instance, if an individual lives in a rural community, they are disadvantaged to health services and products which lead to a lower SES status. The opposite are those that live in major cities and have better access to health services and jobs which increases the SES status. Technology is one of the increasing expertises which is being modernised in Australia that is helping improve access to isolated communities. This is increasing the chances for people living further away from health services to get the treatment they need. So, even with these environmental factors, technology is one of the advancements that are helping improve an individual’s health.

Modifiable health determinants are ones which an individual can change ^[2]. This allows the individual to have a degree of have control over their health; including diet, exercise, tobacco or drug use. The individual has the power to change these determinants so that they will be living the better life which is watching over the health aspects.  However, non-modifiable factors cannot be changed which usually includes age, gender, ethnicity, family history and cultural heritage ^[2]. However, since these determinants cannot be changed, they do act as warning systems about the increased risk of chronic diseases. Through the foreshadowing, we can better learn on how we can manage our health so that it will minimise the risk. For that reason, an individual can still have responsibility over their health as all these warnings will help reduce the risk as you have precaution about the outcome.

In conclusion, we can see that for an individual to attain better health, it is primarily their responsibility to look after the way they are living and how they are making it for the better. Even though there are so many factors which will changes one’s health behaviours, the bottom line results in individual responsibility even with all the amendable factors.