Health Belief Model (HBM) is a theory that is widely used in the healthcare field to exclusively predict health behaviors based on personal beliefs ( Glanz, Rimer, & Viswanath, 2015) . It assumes that health behavior is a function of personal beliefs or the perceptions a person have about the illness and the interventions available to reduce its occurrence.
Constructs
The HBM consists of eight components that are used to determine how people will take action to prevent, detect, or control the occurrence of a disease ( Glanz, Rimer, & Viswanath, 2015) . They are as described below.
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Perceived Susceptibility
This refers to the degree to which a person feels they are at risk of developing a condition. Perceived susceptibility comes particularly as a result of indulging in a particular behavior. The more an individual perceives the risk, the greater the likelihood of practicing behaviors that decrease the susceptibility.
Perceived Severity
This is the personal belief in the extent to which a disease a person is susceptible to can cause harm. The feeling may come from past experience, knowledge, and personal beliefs.
Perceived Threat
The construct is a combination of perceived susceptibility and perceived severity. It is a product of the two constructs, and when both are zero, then the perceived threat is also zero.
Perceived Benefits
These are the personal beliefs about the positive outcomes of the recommended action in reducing the perceived susceptibility of a condition. A person will adopt a new course of action if it will reduce the threat of the disease or its negative consequences. Benefits can either be health-related or non-health related.
Perceived Barriers
These are the obstacles that can prevent an individual to take action. They come when a person starts to evaluate the tradeoffs that will arise after adopting a new behavior. This is the most significant construct when it comes to the determination of health behavior change. The negative consequences deter the adoption of new behavior, and thus the perceived benefits have to outweigh the perceived barriers for a person to change their health behavior.
Cues to Action
This component refers to the external events and factors that influence an individual to make behavior change. The cues are responsible for the activation of the perceived susceptibility and perceived benefits and they instigate action.
Modifying Factors
These are personal variables that influence how a person perceives the above-described constructs. They are usually not changeable and include factors such as age, knowledge, past experience, and culture.
Self-efficacy
This is a construct that defines the beliefs that an individual can carry out the recommended health behavior. It describes the personal confidence that the person holds to have a likelihood of behavior change.
Application of the Health Belief Model
HBM was initially developed to assess why people were not going for Tuberculosis vaccination even when it was available. It later was used in other conditions such as obesity. Obesity is a condition of possessing excessive body fat whose cause is through both genetic and environmental factors. The condition is the fifth leading cause of global deaths. Obesity and overweight claim the lives of at least 2.8 million people in the world every year ( Wouters, van Nunen, Vingerhoets, & Geenen, 2009 ). Evidence shows that overweight is additionally a risk factor for the development of the entire spectrum of other metabolic syndrome pathologies including chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, stroke, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases ( Soliman, Elsayied, & Shouli, 2018) . It is also associated with psychological health issues such as social discrimination and depression.
Therefore, it is essential to deduce prevention behaviors. The application of HBM to obesity helps in predicting the ability of such interventions to prevent obesity.
The chosen behaviors include working out 2 times a day and 5 times a week to help in reducing weight from 66 kgs to 60 kgs. The desired outcome for this behavior is losing weight in order to run 3 miles under 20 minutes.
Perceived Susceptibility
An individual who is 66 kgs has to accept that he or she is at the risk of developing illnesses related to being overweight such as diabetes, stroke, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases before beginning to exercise 2 times a day and 5 times a week.
Perceived Severity
When obesity is left untreated or unchecked, it can lead to severe consequences such as pain on the lower back, and future health risks such as disability. On the extreme end, obesity can cause early death. The thought of fatality is able to set an individual who is 66 kgs to consider increasing physical exercise.
Perceived Threat
Given that there is perceived susceptibility and perceived severity, obesity is considered a health threat.
Perceived Benefits
Working out is perceived to be beneficial in that it helps in burning calories and reduce body fat. In turn, this helps in reducing weight ( Lovell, El Ansari, & Parker, 2010) . This will boost the cardiovascular system and prevent comorbid diseases. The other perceived benefit is confidence in one’s body thus preventing social discrimination.
Perceived Barriers
Embarrassment and fear of injury are among the top barriers to physical activity. An individual may lack the courage to begin exercising ( Soliman, Elsayied, & Shouli, 2018) . The perceived notion of pain from physical may discourage one from the beginning and thus causing more threat to the musculoskeletal system.
Cues to Action
The motivation for an overweight individual to begin exercising lies in the publicity that the media has given obesity and the knowledge of dangers in the future. Conscious of increasing weight can also be a cue for action to begin physical activity.
Modifying Factors
Obesity and overweight have several modifying factors. Knowledge is of importance. The lack of awareness makes an individual to not consider the risks of obesity or the benefits of physical exercise in preventing other conditions. Gender is another factor as women are more embarrassed to begin exercising due lack of confidence.
Self-efficacy
The willingness to begin exercising is an important determinant in the remedy for over-weight and obesity. The confidence comes also through the reduction of anxiety and goal setting.
Challenges Faced and Confidence in the Behavior
Losing weight to be able to run 3 miles in 20 minutes is a big fete that is marked by several challenges. First, I may lack the time to engage in the exercise to reduce weight. The busy daily schedule makes little time for physical activity. The solution to this is to make a routine for exercise just like any other activity. I would make it an appointment and schedule it accordingly. Secondly, a gym membership may be expensive to afford. As a solution, it is possible to find online moves that can help reduce weight without even the need to visit the gym. Lack of motivation to keep going is another challenge. Seeing other people into exercising and not me may be demoralizing. To solve this, my biggest motivation will be to ask why I want to lose the weight. Perceived severity of obesity should be enough motivation. In retrospect, I have enough confidence to change the behavior by solving some of the common challenges, thus it is possible to lose weight from 66 kgs to 60 kgs and be able to run 3 miles in under 20 minutes.
Conclusion
Obesity is a serious problem that affects most Americans today. It has several interventions that are associated with behavior. One of them is exercising 2 times a day and 5 times a week. This behavior can be assessed using the Health Belief Model as it can help predict the usefulness of the intervention.
References
Glanz, K., Rimer, B. K., & Viswanath, K. (2015). Health behavior: Theory, research, and practice , 5 .
Lovell, G. P., El Ansari, W., & Parker, J. K. (2010). Perceived exercise benefits and barriers of non-exercising female university students in the United Kingdom. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health , 7 (3), 784-798.
Soliman, N. M., Elsayied, H. A. E., & Shouli, M. M. (2018). Application of health belief model among youth at high risk for obesity in West Bank (Palestine): American Journal of Nursing Science , 7 (3), 86.
Wouters, E. J., van Nunen, A. M., Vingerhoets, A. J., & Geenen, R. (2009). Setting overweight adults in motion: the role of health beliefs: Obesity Facts , 2 (6), 362-369.
