Health Education

Health education is the profession of educating people about health.  Areas within this profession encompass environmental health, physical health, social health, emotional health, intellectual health, and spiritual health. It can be defined as the principle by which individuals and groups of people learn to behave in a manner conducive to the promotion, maintenance, or restoration of health. However, as there are multiple definitions of health, there are also multiple definitions of health education. The Joint Committee on Health Education and Promotion Terminology of 2001 defined Health Education as "any combination of planned learning experiences based on sound theories that provide individuals, groups, and communities the opportunity to acquire information and the skills needed to make quality health decisions." The World Health Organization defined Health Education as "comprising of consciously constructed opportunities for learning involving some form of communication designed to improve health literacy, including improving knowledge, and developing life skills which are conducive to individual and community health."

The Role of the Health Educator

A health educator is “a professionally prepared individual who serves in a variety of roles and is specifically trained to use appropriate educational strategies and methods to facilitate the development of policies, procedures, interventions, and systems conducive to the health of individuals ,groups, and communities” (Joint Committee on Terminology, 2001, p. 100). As a Health Educator you are here to help and enhance the health of others. In wanting to better understand the role of a health educator in January 1979 the Role Delineation Project was put into place. This made a basic role for the health educator. A Framework for the Development of Competency-Based Curricula for Entry Level Health Educators(NCHEC, 1985) and the revised version A Competency-Based Framework for the Professional Development of Certified Health Education Specialists (NCHEC,1996) resulted from the project and these documents made up the framework. Which were made into the seven areas of responsibilities.

Motivation

Education for health begins with people. It hopes to motivate them with whatever interests they may have in improving their living conditions. Its aim is to develop in them a sense of responsibility for health conditions for themselves as individuals, as members of families, and as communities. In communicable disease control, health education commonly includes an appraisal of what is known by a population about a disease, an assessment of habits and attitudes of the people as they relate to spread and frequency of the disease, and the presentation of specific means to remedy observed deficiencies.
Health education is also an effective tool that helps improve health in developing nations. It not only teaches prevention and basic health knowledge but also conditions ideas that re-shape everyday habits of people with unhealthy lifestyles in developing countries. This type of conditioning not only affects the immediate recipients of such education but also future generations will benefit from an improved and properly cultivated ideas about health that will eventually be ingrained with widely spread health education. Moreover, besides physical health prevention, health education can also provide more aid and help people deal healthier with situations of extreme stress, anxiety, depression or other emotional disturbances to lessen the impact of these sorts of mental and emotional constituents, which can consequently lead to detrimental physical effects.

Credentialing

Credentialing is the process by which the qualifications of licensed professionals, organizational members or an organization are determined by assessing the individuals or group background and legitimacy through a standardized process. Accreditation, licensure, or certifications are all forms of credentialing.

In 1978, Helen Cleary, the president of the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) started the process of certification of health educators. Prior to this, there was no certification for individual health educators, with exception to the licensing for school health educators. The only accreditation available in this field was for school health and public health professional preparation programs.

Her initial response was to incorporate experts in the field and to promote funding for the process. The director if the Division of Associated Health Professions in the Bureau of Health Manpower of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Thomas Hatch, became interested in the project. To ensure that the commonalities between health educators across the spectrum of professions would be sufficient enough to create a set of standards, Dr. Cleary spent a great amount of time to create the first conference called the Bethesda Conference. In attendance were interested professionals who covered the possibility of creating credentialing within the profession.

With the success of the conference and the consensus that the standardization of the profession was vital, those who organized the conference created the National Task Force in the Preparation and Practice of Health Educators. Funding for this endeavor became available in January 1979, and role delineation became a realistic vision for the future. They presented the framework for the system in 1981 and published entry-level criteria in 1983. Seven areas of responsibility, 29 areas of competency and 79 sub-competencies were required of health education professionals for approximately 20 years for entry-level educators.

In 1986 a second conference was held in Bethesda, Maryland to further the credentialing process. In June 1988, the National Task Force in the Preparation and Practice of Health Educators became the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing, Inc. (NCHEC). Their mission was to improve development of the field by promoting, preparing and certifying health education specialists. The NCHEC has three division boards that included preparation, professional development and certification of health educator professionals. The third board, which is called the Division Board of Certification of Health Education Specialist (DBCHES), has the responsibility of developing and administering the CHES exam. An initial certification process allowed 1,558 individuals to be chartered into the program through a recommendation and application process. The first exam was given in 1990.

In order for a candidate to sit for a exam they must have either a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree from and accredited institution, and an official transcript that shows a major in health education, Community Health Education, Public Health Education, or School Health Education, etc. The transcript will be accepted if it reflects 25 semester hours or 37 quarter hours in health education preparation and covers the 7 responsibilities covered in the framework.

In 1998 a project called the Competencies Update Project (CUP) began. The purpose of the CUP project was to up-date entry-level requirements and to develop advanced-level competences. Through research the CUP project created the requirements for three levels, which included entry-level, Advanced I and Advanced II educators.

Teaching

In the United States some forty states require the teaching of health education. A comprehensive health education curriculum consists of planned learning experiences which will help students achieve desirable attitudes and practices related to critical health issues. Some of these are: emotional health and a positive self image; appreciation, respect for, and care of the human body and its vital organs; physical fitness; health issues of alcohol, tobacco, drug use and abuse; health misconceptions and myths; effects of exercise on the body systems and on general well being; nutrition and weight control; sexual relationships and sexuality, the scientific, social, and economic aspects of community and ecological health; communicable and degenerative diseases including sexually transmitted diseases; disaster preparedness; safety and driver education; factors in the environment and how those factors affect an individual's or population's Environmental health (ex: air quality, water quality, food sanitation); life skills; choosing professional medical and health services; and choices of health careers.

Protein For Health

Protein is in many foods that we eat on a regular basis.Proteins are part of every cell, tissue, and organ in our bodies. These body proteins are constantly being broken down and replaced. The protein in the foods we eat is digested into amino acids that are later used to replace these proteins in our bodies.Meats, poultry and fish legumes (dry beans and peas) tofu eggs nuts and seeds milk and milk products grains, some vegetables.Compare the amount of meat, poultry, fish, eggs, legumes, nuts, and seeds you are eating per day to what is recommended. As an example, if you a 48-year-old female who is active less than 30 minutes a day only needs about 5 ounces each day from the meat and beans group. Some pre-cut slices of meat and poultry, such as a pork chop or chicken breast, can be four to five ounces each. You can see how it would be easy to eat too much Save your money and don’t buy the protein supplements. If you’re healthy, you probably get all the protein you need from your diet.1 cup of milk has 8 grams of protein .A 3-ounce piece of meat has about 21 grams of protein 1 cup of dry beans has about 16 grams of protein.An 8-ounce container of yogurt has about 11 grams of protein.Choose meats that are leaner cuts and trim away any fat you can see. For chicken and turkey, remove the skin to reduce fat. Substitute pinto or black beans for meat in chili and tacos. Choose low-fat or fat-free milk and yogurt. Choose low-fat or fat-free cheese. Choose egg whites

Calculate your Ratios

Nutrition - Most of you reading this realize the importance of eating small frequent meals. If not go to our website http://medicaladv.blogspot.com/ for archived nutritional articles or email me if you have a specific question. If we strive for 5 small meals per day this works out to 35 meals per week.
5 meals/day * 7 days/week = 35 meals/week

So far so good. Now if we take 10% of 35 this works out to 3.5.

35 * 0.10 = 3.5

For simplicity we round 3.5 to 4 to work with whole numbers. So if 4 meals out of 35 is 10% then the remaining 31 meals works out to 90%.

If you are a 90/10 individual nutritionally then 90% of the time during the week you will the right foods, the right amounts at the right time. And 10% of the time you will deviate from the plan slightly and enjoy a cheat meal. The only way to achieve 90% is by planning out your meals for the week ahead of time, shopping for all the groceries you'll need, doing all the prep work such as cutting, chopping and cooking and then eating what is already planned out for the week.

If someone were to miss one meal per day, so 4 eating meals per day, then that would work out to 28 meals per week. Assuming this individual ate exactly what they were supposed to with respect to dose, quality and timing with zero cheat meals the absolute best ratio they could achieve is 28/35 or 80%. See how easy it is to mess up on your nutrition? Plan it out. Do the prep work. Stick to the plan.

Rest - To determine your rest ratio assign each day of the week a value of 14%. If you want to get really technical you can assign 7% for the morning and 7% for the evening. In this category you count 14% for every day that go to bed and wake up at the appropriate time. Let's suppose you need to be asleep by 10 pm and up by 630 am and do this M-F but stay up later and sleep in on the weekends.

5 days to bed at 10 pm/up at 630 am * 14% = 70%

Can you see how much the weekends can derail your progress? You put in so much effort M-F only to lose 30% of your efforts on the weekend. I'm not saying you can never stay out late on a weekend but when you do you've got to get up the next morning at the same time (630 am). Not fun but it ensures you will feel tired and sleep well the next night.

Training - This category is unique from the other two in that we don't have to workout 7 days a week. In fact I don't want you to. I'd prefer for you to have a rest day. Therefore we consider 6 days as a complete and total training week and divide each possible workout day as one-sixth in value. The definition of a workout will vary greatly depending on your training history, injury status and age but ultimately we are seeking some type of physical activity per day to count as one sixth. Consider the following business executive's training week.

3 resistance based workouts per week * 1/6 = 3/6 or 1/2
1 energy system based interval workout = * 1/6 = 1/6
1 weekend bike ride with the family * 1/6 = 1/6
2 days off = 0
If we add up all the total fractions in sixths we have

3/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 = 5/6

A ratio of 5/6 works out to 83%. We round this up to 90% for taking at least one rest day per week. There is no extra bonus for more than one rest day. So getting 5 days of activity would be a ratio of 90/10. Here's how 2, 3 and 4 days of activity work out as ratios.

2 workouts per week * 1/6 value per workout = 2/6 or 33% rounded up to 40% for a ratio of 40/60

3 workouts per week * 1/6 value per workout = 3/6 or 50% rounded up to 55% for a ration of 55/45

4 workouts per week * 1/6 value per workout = 4/6 or 66% rounded up to 70% for a ratio of 70/30

The interesting thing here is that 2 days per week is sometimes referred to as "detraining" where we slowly start to lose the gains we've made and this is represented by a negative ratio of 40/60. Negative because most of the time (60%) we are not making an effort to workout. As well, 3 days a week is often viewed as the threshold for slow steady progress and this ratio of 55/45 puts us slightly into the positive category but not by much. Mess up on your nutrition and or rest and watch how long it can take you to lose 5 lbs!

There you have it. Hopefully this has helped you figure your ratios with respect to nutrition, rest and workouts. Knowing these will help put you on the path to abundant health and energy.

High Blood Pressure and Headaches

High blood pressure is commonly referred to as a “silent disease,” because it typically doesn’t announce itself with any hallmark signs and has no universal symptoms. In spite of this, there are a very few symptoms that, together with warning signs in the medical history, usually make a doctor suspect high blood pressure. Among these, recurrent or worsening headache had been the closest thing to a “real” high blood pressure symptom.

It has been noted for decades that people with high blood pressure seem to suffer more frequent and severe headaches.The science and physiology behind headaches offers support to this observation, as well – increased blood pressure causes a phenomenon called autoregulation in the blood vessels that run through the tissue underneath the skull (where most headaches start). In other words, the autoregulation leads to constriction of these blood vessels, a very well known cause of headache symptoms.

Emerging research from Norway, though, hints that people with high blood pressure may actually have fewer headaches than those with normal blood pressure. The studies, conducted in Norwegian patients and published in a large medical journal in the United States, were designed as a follow up to earlier research and found that people with elevated, untreated high blood pressure were as much as 50% less likely to suffer a headache than were patients with similar health profiles but normal blood pressure.

Among participants in the study, those with higher systolic pressures and wider pulse pressures seemed to be the most protected from headache. Interestingly, patients with high blood pressure who were receiving treatment seemed to have headache risk similar to that of patients with normal blood pressure. This treatment/headache risk relationship persisted even in patients who continued to have some elevation in their blood pressure readings despite treatment. This suggests that headache risk may rise as blood pressure falls.

Researchers don’t yet know why elevated blood pressure protects against headaches. Theories range from altered levels of certain hormones and blood chemicals to differences in artery stiffness – arteries tend to become more stiff as blood pressure rises, one of the main reasons that high blood pressure can lead to blood vessel damage.

While this may be a small piece of good news for those suffering from high blood pressure, the risks of elevated blood pressure still far outweigh any associated headache reduction benefits. If you are being treated for high blood pressure and are suffering from frequent or severe headaches, you should not stop taking your medicines. Rather, you might require a different medicine and should speak with your doctor.