Bog 14

Balancing a personal life, professional life and continuing with your education can be hard. I think the strategies for doing this are the samefor men and women. Making sure your priorities are the important ones is the key to success. A person can have many roles and obligations. The challenge is giving each part of your life the amount of time that makes you feel good about yourself and your life. It is not a crime to ask for help. In fact, it is a sign of a great leader. There may be some tasks that only you can complete but some of your daily routine can be delegated to someone else. Knowing what is important is deciding if cleaning the kitchen or helping your child with homework. Both may need to be done but which one can wait! At the end of our lives I think we will care more about our relationships with our family and our accomplishments than if we had a super clean house or not. I think asking yourself, Really, is this going to matter, is it going to make a difference? is the number 1 strategy for balance in your life.

Blog 13

Is it a sign of personal weakness or strength for a woman to admit that she has a problem with alcohol or drugs?

Admitting you have a problem with a drugs or alcohol is a sign of personal strength. Fear or embaressment has to be overcome for someone to admit a weakness in their lives. I would think that not being in control would make someone feel weak but taking the initiative to get help and overcome a problem shows strength of character. Women have the feeling of being the weaker sex sometimes so maybe the admission of a problem like drug or alcohol abuse would add to the stigma of being weak. We need to educate people to focus on their strengths when overcoming things that hold them down.

Blog #12

I believe the media has played a major role in making people with metal illnesses feel shame. When you in the past have seen shows with “crazy” people, they are always ranting and raving and paranoid. This is a fear that many people with forms of mental illness face. People need to recognize that there are many forms of mental illness from severe to mild. There is no reason to be ashamed of something that you did not choose to have. People are embarrassed to tell people they may need medication for anxiety or depression and this heightens the feeling of shame and embarrassment. People need to realize that mental illness can be controlled and people can actually recover from it. There is a need for education for people to realize that mental illness is not necessarily what you see in the movies. The fear of people with mental illness is not accurate or logical in many cases and our embarrassment in things we can’t control needs to be brought to the forefront by health educators.

Blog #11

We have our heads in the sand when it comes to our future! Living with our future in mind is how everyone should be living but I actually believe not many people do. With the fast paced lives that everyone seems to lead the assumption is that we are living for the moment. I think if we all took a minute to pause and look at our lives, our behaviors and health habits we could see what we are doing to our futures. It is easy to write or say the words but not so easy to actually make drastic changes. We can look at our diets and know what we need to eat but most of the time we don’t. We can see that our bodies need rest and exercise and again most of the time we don’t get either of those things. I believe that people know instinctually what they need for their bodies but we live in a time that is so busy that we ignore the needs. We are all about self-reward in out culture. We know what taste’s good, feels good and sounds good and 9 times out of 10 it is not good for our future. We are shortening our lives and actually the quality of our lives in the process.

Blog # 10

The thing I think is most interesting about heart disease in women is that women are rarely studied like men are. Most of the studies that are done are focused on men. Cardiovascular disease is responsible for 40% of all deaths in women (Texas Heart Institute, 2009). The prognosis for women is sometimes worse because women don’t find out about their disease in time. Women don’t have the same symptoms as men and sometimes don’t know that they are having an issue. We as health educators need to turn the focus on all groups equally. Women and men need to be looked at separately since the disease acts different in women and men and women need to be more educated on the symptoms. Heart attacks don’t always look like they do in the movies or on TV and until that fact is taught to women we will have more and more women facing heart problems that they are unaware of until it is too late.


References:

Texas Heart Institute (2009) Women and Heart Disease Retrieved April 11, 2009 from

http://www.texasheartinstitute.org/HIC/Topics/HSmart/women.cfm

Blog #9

Exercise should not be a four letter word. My schedule does not permit me or should I say my laziness does not permit me to exercise on a regular basis. I am so tired after work and relaxing and unwinding sounds better than working out. My eating habits are not any better. With the busy schedule of my children fast food has been an option more than I would like. When starting in the Health Studies program, I had a project that I did on incorporating family time into active exercise with my family- not basic go to the gym workouts but things that my family and I would enjoy that would get us moving. This has been a great success and hopefully one that we continue. Playing basketball together, bike rides and just running around at the park get us moving more than you think. I have learned much from my sweet daughter about exercising. She is a sporty girl, she loves basketball and volleyball and cheerleading. When spring came around we wanted her to try track to keep her in shape for the off-season and she was not happy about it. After one week of track she thought she might die! Then miraculously the next week passed and she started seeing some major changes in her body and her endurance. Now she loves it! She has lost about 10 pounds which is basically just toning her up and she feels very confident in herself and her abilities. I think seeing that change has helped me. Sometimes we don't want to do what we know is good for us but when we just make ourselves do it it is all worthwhile!

Bog #8

One of my wife and my daughter's favorite shows is America's Next Top Model. There is always a marathon of this show on our TV somehow. A major concern for me when watching it with them is the critiques that they give. A few of the girls have been what they consider "plus size" models. The scary thing is these girls couldn't be more than a size 10 in clothes! When watching the video this week in our Supplemental reading it was a bit scary for me as a dad. I have a beautiful healthy 14 year old daughter and hearing some of the things that come out of her mouth about her body is a bit terrifying at times. I have heard my daughter call herself fat numerous times and can't even believe she can think the way she thinks. I certainly blame the media, the entertainment industry and the actual clothing designers. When my daughter tries on clothes it is all about the size. If it says medium or large then my daughter has a hard time wanting to buy it. The clothes are made so tiny that most people would have to wear a larger size and it is misleading to young girls that are unsure about their bodies. Watching the people in the video that were affected by eating disorders was heart wrenching! I can certainly see what leads to women having body issues. We as a country need to stand up and say no more! We have to take care of our daughters and mothers and friends that should feel good about themselves and their bodies. Healthy living should be the priority not how skinny you can be and that is what our young girls need to be taught.