Laney Health Resources Page

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Keys to Living a Healthy Lifestyle

Health Influences 

Your health and wellness are based on factors that influence your health behavior.  Some factors are culture, religion, heredity, media, technology, physical environment, social environment, attitude, and behavior.

Here is a list of lifestyle factors that promote good health.

  • getting 8 - 10 hrs of sleep each night
  • eating a healthy breakfast every morning
  • having a variety of nutritious foods daily
  • sustaining a healthy weight
  • vigorously exercising a minimum of 20 minutes daily
  • avoiding alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs
  • utilizing stress management strategies
  • sustaining positive relationships
  • practicing safe behaviors to prevent injuries
  • abstinence until marriage

Health Education

The goal of health education is to provide people with the tools for living long, energetic, and productive lives.  This provides everyone an opportunity to be health literate.  Health literate means that you have the capability to learn about and understand basic health information and services and use these resources to promote his or her health and wellness.

 

Foundation of Health

Your health is stablized by three metaphoric sides of a triangle.  The triangle should by balanced meaning each side should get the same amount of focus.  The three key elements are physical health, mental (psychological)/emotional health, and social health. 

Actions and Choices

In many cases, the decisions and the ensuing behaviors will determine the number of health risks you experience as a teen.  The majority of parents step in to influence you decisions only when they feel you are heading towards acting on a risk behavior (actions that can potentially threaten your health or the health of others).  The key is to be aware of and recognize risk behaviors.  As a teen, you are pushing away from parental guidance.  This means you have to be more mindful of your actions.  In some cases, doing one individualized risk behaviors may not impact your overall health but sometimes a range of risk behaviors could be very harmful to you health.  An example would be drinking, smoking, and getting little sleep.  These together would be considered "comulative risks.  This means that these risks increase in effect with each added risk. 

Information for this webpage is for informational purposes only.  More information about the topics on this page can be found in our school health book. 

Reference: 

Merki, M.B., Merki, D. (2004). Glencoe Health: Ninth Edition. New York: McGraw Hill.