Making Wellness a Lifestyle Chapter #1

Central Ideas/ W.A.C. Central Ideas: W.A.C. Assignment: Total wellness involves your physical health, mental health, and social health throughout life. You an choose healthful behaviors such as eating right, staying fit, and managing stress to help meet your wellness goals. W.A.C. Assignment: What healthful behaviors do you incorporate in your daily life that help all aspects of your wellness?

Learning Targets 1. I can summarize how physical, mental, and social aspects of wellness affect quality of life over the lifespan. 2. I can recall factors that contribute to disease. 3. I can distinguish those factors that affect wellness over which I have control. 4. I can judge how my lifestyle choices affect my health now and in the future. 5. I can implement a behavior-change contract to improve my health. 6. I can evaluate the importance of nutrition research for making healthy food choices. 7. I can understand why the use of the scientific process is important when conducting nutrition research.

What is Wellness? Wellness involves being in good physical, mental, and social health. Wellness: The state of being in good health. Wellness is often associated with quality of life. Quality of Life: Refers to a person’s satisfaction with his or her looks, lifestyle, and responses to daily events.

Wellness Continuum People can define their personal states of wellness as points on a continuum between premature death and optimum health. Premature Death: Death that occurs due to lifestyle behaviors that lead to fatal accident or the formation of an avoidable disease. Optimum Health: A state of wellness characterized by peak physical, mental, and social well-being.

Aspects of Wellness Three Major Components of Wellness: 1. Physical Health: Refers to the fitness of your body. 2. Mental Health: Has to do with the way you feel about yourself, your life, and the people around you. 3. Social Health: Describes the way you get along with other people. Stress can impact all three components of wellness. Stress: The inner agitation you feel in response to change.

Holistic Approach to Wellness Holistic Medicine: An approach to health care that focuses on all aspects of patient care– physical, mental, and social. Mental Health Social Health Physical Health Wellness

Factors That Contribute to Disease A number of factors can negatively affect wellness by contributing to disease known as risk factors. Risk Factor: A characteristic or behavior that influences a person’s chance of being injured or getting a disease Most of these factors are: Unhealthful Lifestyle Choices Poor Environmental Quality Environmental Quality: Refers to the state of the physical world around you. Inadequate Health Care Diagnosis: The identification of a disease. Heredity

Health-Promoting Choices You can counteract these factors by making health- promoting choices by: Choosing a healthful lifestyle. Diet: Refers to all the foods and beverages you consume. Resisting peer pressure to engage in unhealthful behaviors. Peer Pressure: The influence people in your age and social group have on your behavior. Work to improve the quality of your environment. Seek health care when you need it.

Making a Change You can set and work toward goals for improving behaviors that affect your health. Assessing your lifestyle choices will help you determine if you are making lifestyle choices that promote good health.

Nutrition and Wellness Nutrition and daily physical activity are two factors that have been shown to have a big impact on health. Nutrition: The sum of the processes by which a person takes in and uses food substances, known as nutrients. Nutrients: The basic components of food that nourish the body.

Using the Scientific Method to Study Nutrition and Wellness Question Asked Topic Researched Hypothesis Formed Experiments Conducted Results Support Hypothesis Hypothesis Accepted Experiments Repeated Theory Formed Results Don’t Support Hypothesis Hypothesis Rejected New Hypothesis Experts use the scientific method to find answers to their questions about nutrition and daily physical activity. Scientific Method: The process researchers use to find answers to their questions. Hypothesis: A suggested answer to a scientific question. Theory: A principle that tries to explain something that happens in nature. Their findings have led many people to change their lifestyle habits.

Healthful Living in the United States A number of nutrition and fitness concerns still exist in the United States which could impact life expectancy. Life Expectancy: The average length of life of people living in the same environment. With education, skills, and motivation, people can eat better and exercise more to maintain better health.

Bibliography West, D.F. (2012). “Nutrition and wellness for life.” Goodheart-Wilcox; Tinley Park, Illinois.