Path to Wellness Essay How important is your body to you? Are you a more go with the flow type of person? Or do you truly care about how your body looks and feels? It is extremely important to take good care of your body to maintain good health, and to prevent any health issues and illnesses later on in your life. Physically, your body will be in good health when you continue to get regular physical activity and maintain a healthy weight. When you take good care of your body, you are taking good care of your health as well.
You are then preventing certain diseases and even putting yourself at a lower risk of ever being diagnosed with cancers. Taking care of your body also leads to having healthy mental/ emotional health by helping you to feel good about how you look and how you feel about yourself. Therefore, why would you want to take that risk of doing any harm to your body such as drinking alcohol, smoking, or using tobacco and any other type of drugs? There are so many benefits to taking good care of your body and maintaining good health.
Why would anybody want to ruin their bodies and their chances of preventing any illnesses? When you choose to do harm to your body by drinking or smoking, you are putting yourself at a higher risk each time you do so. When you care for your body, you are caring for yourself as a whole. This then helping all three components of your health triangle, your physical health, your mental/emotional health, and as well as your social health by giving you the confidence to go out and meet new people and to meet new friends. It is very important that you take care of and manage your body and health.
Sometimes it may seem difficult, or even impossible to get yourself into shape or back into shape It is especially important to never give up and never lose hope. Eventually you will reach your goals and you will look and feel amazing about yourself, therefore, improving your mental/ emotional health as well as your physical health. In order to achieve your goals, it best to start out small and work your way up. Three healthful behaviors to follow are simple and effective and may help you with your health goals. The first healthful behavior is to eat a healthful diet. Eat foods from each of the five categories on the food pyramid.
Remember, you should make sure to eat a variety of different foods and not eat the same things over and over. Fruits and vegetables should take up at least half of your plate, and meats and beans and dairy should take up a smaller portion on your plate. It is important to eat foods that are not high in fats and sugars. To help you maintain a healthy diet and help with making your food choices, create a plan, or a nutrition log to write down and log everything that you ate and how much you have eaten to help you keep track of how well you are doing, or to see how much improvement you might still need.
The second healthful behavior that you should take is to get regular physical activity daily. Teenagers should get at least 60 minutes of physical activity a day. To help build muscle and strength, you may want to get at least three days in to do vigorous activity such as running or bike riding. The rest of the week could be simple such as walking around your community. Physical activity is not always going to the gym and exercising. When you clean up your room or do house work for a few hours you are participating in physical activity.
Exercising shouldn’t be stressful or even hard work, you should have fun. Do something that you enjoy doing. Getting your daily amount of physical activity shouldn’t be boring, you should choose to do something that you’ll look forward to waking up and doing. The third healthful behavior that is most important is to avoid doing any harm to your body by drinking alcohol, smoking, or using tobacco and any other type of drugs. When you choose to take part in these types of activities, you are constantly putting yourself at a higher risk for illnesses and diseases in the future.
When you drink, you are damaging both the lining of your stomach, your liver, as well as your brain and how it functions. When you choose to smoke, you are greatly damaging your lungs, which may eventually lead to lung cancer. To maintain a healthy body, you need to avoid these types of activities to keep your body healthy and happy. When you engage in these activities, you are never taking good care of your health, you are only decreasing your health and putting yourself at risks for health defects. Once you take your first sip of alcohol or smoke your first cigarette, you can guarantee that you’ll regret it later.
To effectively take good care of your body as well as your health and wellness, there are a few risky behaviors to avoid. If you are a teenager or a young adult, you should be practicing abstinence, this means choosing to not take part in having any sexual intercourse or in any sexual behavior period. Involving yourself in sexual activity has many risk factors alone. The first risk to consider before you engage in sexual intercourse is pregnancy. Are you prepared to have a baby? Are you ready to take on the responsibility to have a child and become a parent? Is your partner ready to have a child?
Say that you do end up becoming pregnant, if your partner is not ready for that type of commitment and responsibility, will you be able to handle a child all on your own? More than likely the answers to these questions are no, I am not ready. When you engage in this risky behavior and do end up pregnant, you will have no choice to mature and grow up faster than you expected that you would. Caring for a baby is not an easy task and will be difficult, especially at a young age. Not only is pregnancy a risk factor to consider, but the second risk is catching an STD or Sexually Transmitted Disease.
STD’s are a common risk of being sexually active because some of these diseases have no symptoms or signs, and others have no cure. To prevent against these risks, use protection when engaging in sexual activity. Although, even when protection is being used, it is not 100% effective and could still lead to the possibility of pregnancy and catching an STD. The most effective and guaranteed way to avoid these risks is to remain abstinent until you are old enough and ready to take on these responsibilities. Another risky behavior that should be avoided would be the use of drugs and dangerous substances, as well as the use of tobacco.
Taking a part in doing drugs is not only illegal, but extremely dangerous to the body. It is not only a danger to yourself, but to others around you as well. Drugs and tobacco both do great damage to the body especially to the brain. When you choose to use tobacco, you are already one step closer to future illnesses and cancers. No, there is no 100% guaranteed way of not ever becoming diagnosed with cancer and other diseases, but we can help prevent ourselves from these diseases if we continue to take care of our bodies and continue to live out a healthy lifestyle.
No matter the age that you are, whether you are only a child, teenager, adult, or even elderly, you should be constantly thinking about your future and keep in mind the years ahead of you. We all want to live a long and healthy life, and to do so, you need to take care of yourself by following and practicing healthful behaviors and avoiding all risky behaviors. Taking care of your health and wellness should not be difficult to manage. Instead, it should be easy as long as you keep up the good work. Never become discouraged and never give up on yourself or even others. Continue to encourage yourself and push yourself into meeting your goals.