Healthy lifestyles are various ways of living that enhance good health and increase life expectancy. It includes a constant contact with healthcare professionals, but the majority of the activities happen outside the healthcare setting. Such activities include proper diet, exercise, weight control, rest, and avoidance of stress. Max Weber was critical in analyzing the general role of lifestyles in society and discovered that as much as particular socioeconomic status groups are characterized by their lifestyles, some lifestyles are observed to spread across various class boundaries. Weber also added that lifestyles are based on what people consume as opposed to what they produce. Countries like the United States have shown that healthy lifestyles are spreading across the class structure of the various societies. However, the participation in the lower classes is less than that in, the higher structures. The aim of a healthy lifestyle includes the production of good health, avoidance of diseases, and improvement physical well-being, and increasing life among others.
The work of Weber and Bourdieu complements the model that was proposed by Cockerham. According to Cockerham (2014), the model depicts how certain variables are responsible for influencing healthy lifestyle choices, with class circumstances represented as the strongest variable. Preventive care is another important aspect of healthy lifestyle behavior that involves contact with a physician and other health care providers. Preventive health consists of the physical examination, dental care, Screening for cancer and other diseases, immunization among others that are geared towards reducing illness and minimizing its chances (Fullagar, 2009).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The socio-psychological theory of help-seeking behavior stresses the importance of self-perception about a person’s understanding of a particular symptom. An important aspect of the model is whether a person perceives themselves as able to perform normal social duties. An example is when cancer patients delay seeing a doctor due to the fear of having their perceptions confirmed. However, it is suggested that the more symptoms are perceived especially with regards to a chronic illness, the more likely the person will seek professional help.
References
Cockerham, W. C. (2014). Medical sociology . John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Fullagar, S. (2009). Governing healthy family lifestyles through discourses of risk and responsibility. Biopolitics and the ‘obesity epidemic’: Governing bodies , 108-126.
