What factors can influence women to adopt healthier lifestyles and engage
Most of the times, it is really hard to adopt a healthier style and engage in preventative behaviors. Why? Because many women have different styles on how to eat healthy. The family culture provides an important setting in which individuals interpret and share their health information and formulate strategies to engage in health-promoting behaviors. Heart disease may be the leading cause of death for both men and women, but that doesn't mean you have to accept it as your fate. Although you lack the power to change some risk factors, such as family history or age. There are some key heart disease prevention steps you can take. Take steps to avoid heart disease don't smoke, get regular exercise and eat healthy foods. Avoid heart problems in the future by adopting a healthy lifestyle today.
Poor lifetime eating habits are often established during childhood in many Mexican American families. Such as in my family my mom always cook with oil, and as you know Mexican families cook Mexican-food, which is really hard to avoid or change a healthy behavior. But, since I change my major to Health Studies I start seeing things in different ways. Also I tell my mom that she needs to reduce cooking with oil or change the style of the oil. Also my mom or many Latinas mom’s are those kinds of mothers who worried more about their family then themselves. My mom is one mother like that, but when get the time that she needs to do something for her health she say: “luego mi hija, yo me siento bien” (later on my daughter, I feel fine). So I think we need to start changing our families’ behaviors first, and then it would be easier for us and our future family to adopt a good healthy behavior.
Be sure to read Karrie's blog on how her entire family is getting on board changing their heritage of cooking unhealthy meals. Her story was very inspiring to me, and maybe your family might decide to make small changes like using olive oil instead of vegetable oil. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteYou are right about family having a major influence on our lifestyle as children. However, it can be difficult to convince family members, especially the elders, that what they've been doing all these years can create health problems. The way many families cook is traditional and to ask or try to educate on a healthier way is a little difficult for some to consider. At least that has been my experience with some of my family members. I did a project for a class last semester that involved preparing a healthy meal for a group of people. Two members of the group were an overweight married couple. They tried the food and said they would rather not eat at all than eat healthy. They said they attempted many healthy eating habits before but prefer the taste of fattier foods.
ReplyDeleteGood luck in helping your family and their food choices. Sounds like your mom is a sweet woman!