Lesson 3: Health Risks

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Lesson 3 Health Risks Your Behavior
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Warm up

• List some healthful behaviors you already
  practice. What healthful behaviors would you like
  to add to your life?

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Behaviors

• Behavior
• The way you act or choose to act in a situation.
• Behaviors can be healthful, or they can put you
  or others at risk.
• They can be learned and become habit.
• Healthful behaviors
• Behaviors that promote health, prevent injury and
  premature death, and improve the quality of the
  environment.
• It is more beneficial to your health status to
  learn and practice healthful behaviors.

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Identifying Health Risks

• Every day you are faced with some degree of risk.
• Simple events such as crossing a street or using
  electrical appliances, carry a degree of risk.
• Risk behaviors actions that can potentially
  threaten your health or the health of others.
• It is important to recognize that you can control
  most risk behaviors.
• By understanding the risks associated with
  certain behaviors, you can make safe and
  responsible decisions about which risks to avoid.

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Recognizing Risk Behaviors

• The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has
  identified six risk behaviors that account for
  most of the deaths and disability among young
  people under age 24.
• These risk factors can lead to heart disease,
  cancer, and other serious illnesses later in
  life
• Tobacco use
• Unhealthy dietary behaviors
• Inadequate physical activity
• Alcohol and other drug use
• Sexual behaviors that may result in STDs and
  unintended pregnancies
• Behaviors that contribute to unintentional
  injuries and violence.

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Risks and Consequences

• Risk behaviors carry significant consequences.
  Both the short-term and long-term consequences
  can harm your health.
• Before you engage in risk behaviors, its
  important to evaluate the consequences.
• For example, smoking can have immediate health
  consequences, such as bad breath, yellow teeth,
  and headaches. The long-term consequences of
  smoking can include lung cancer, emphysema, and
  heart disease.
• Risks can add up over time. Cumulative risks are
  related risks that increase in effect with each
  added risk.
• For example, eating an occasional high-fat meal
  at a fast food restaurant probably wont
  permanently affect your overall health. However,
  if you regularly eat high-fat meals, the negative
  affects accumulate and could lead to serious
  health problems.

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Risks Consequences

• Cumulative risks also increase when several risk
  factors are combined.
• For example, using a cell phone while driving
  carries risks. So does speeding. If an
  individual engages in both of these risk
  behaviors, the chance of getting into a car
  accident becomes even greater.

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How to Avoid or Reduce Risks

• You can take action to reduce your exposure to
  health risks.
• You can reduce health risks through prevention
• Taking steps to keep something from happening or
  getting worse.
• For example, getting regular medical exams and
  dental checkups.

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How to Avoid or Reduce Risks

• You can also reduce health risks through
  abstinence
• A deliberate decision to avoid high-risk
  behaviors, including sexual activity and the use
  of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs.
• All areas of your health triangle benefit when
  you prevent and abstain from high risk behaviors.
• You protect yourself from injury and chronic
  diseases, you feel good about yourself, which
  strengthens your mental/emotional health and
  social relationships.

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Top Ten Teen Risk Behaviors

• Alcohol
• Tobacco
• STDs
• Obesity
• Depression

• Eating Disorders
• Drug Abuse
• Teen Pregnancy
• Anemia
• Diabetes

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WAKE UP
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Where do you stand in terms of your healthful
behavior?

• Health Behavior Inventory
• Each of you will assess your present health
  status in 10 categories described by current
  research.
• Because the assessment is 100 questions, it is
  fairly accurate. The more elements an assessment
  has the more accurate it is likely to be.
• The most comprehensive medical evaluations
  include 600 or more questions.
• This health appraisal uses several questions from
  other appraisals and simplifies them.

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Total Health Assessments

• Take your time and be honest.
• At the end of each section you should tally your
  score in that particular section.
• At the end of the assessment, create a bar graph
  and graph your scores.
• The idea behind the graph is to see whether any
  area of your health is greatly out of alignment
  with the others.
• Balance in all areas of health is the ultimate
  goal.
• After you finish assessment and graph, write your
  two highest scores and your two lowest scores on
  the board so that we can get a general appraisal
  of the health of the class.

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Total Health Assessment Graph Example
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Health Behavior Contract

• A written plan that a person makes to develop the
  habit of practicing a specific healthful
  behavior.
• 5 steps to follow
• Write your name and the date.
• Write the healthful behavior you want to practice
  as a health goal.
• Write specific statements that describe how the
  healthful behavior reduces health risks.
• Make a specific plan for recording your progress.
• Complete the evaluation of how the plan helped
  you accomplish the health goal.

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Reminder

• REMINDER Random binder checks make sure your
  binder is organized!!
• Turn in syllabus if you have not already done so!