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!