Risky Health-Related Behaviors
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You must read each slide, and complete any questions on the slide, in sequence.
Chapter 6: Staying Healthy: Primary Prevention and Positive Psychology
Critical Thinking Exercise: Risky Health-Related Behaviors
Avery, a 20-year-old college sophomore, is very casual about his health. Although he can knowledgeably discuss the hazards of cigarette smoking, poor nutrition, and unsafe sex, Avery engages in all these health-compromising behaviors.
Most days, Avery’s breakfast consists of a cup of coffee, a doughnut, and a cigarette grabbed in a mad dash to get to class on time. Lunch and dinner are almost always a burger and fries from the local drive-through. Avery hasn’t settled down with a partner yet, but he’s had a number of intimate partners, and, despite knowing better, sometimes fails to use a condom. Still, he doesn’t worry about contracting HIV or whether he will develop a sexually transmitted disease.
Avery’s parents are worried about him. At home over semester break, Avery seems terribly run-down and irritable and has obviously gained a lot of weight. To make matters worse, he seems to be behaving recklessly. For example, although he’s on an urban campus and not driving as much, when he does drive he goes well above the speed limit and doesn’t wear a seatbelt. Avery tells his parents that accidents are inevitable and that people who don’t wear seatbelts are no more likely to be seriously injured than are those who wear them.
His more health-conscious friends think Avery is acting as though he is going to be 20 years old forever and nothing bad can ever happen to him. Avery isn’t intentionally trying to make others worry. Sure, his life is fast-paced, but he feels that there is plenty of time to make improvements once the pressures of school are behind him. He knows he should quit smoking but he is afraid that he’ll become even more overweight if he does. Similarly, he knows he should practice safe sex, but he doesn’t know how to bring it up at the right time and he’s worried about what his friends would think.
Researchers have found that unhealthy habits such as Avery’s tend to be related, just as healthy behaviors also tend to occur together. Although people take risks at any age, young adults like Avery seem to be especially prone to risk-taking. Using the biopsychosocial model to guide your thinking, prepare answers to the following questions as you diagnose the roots of Avery’s risky health-related behaviors.
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Research suggests there is a potential physiological factor in the faulty reasoning that allows some young adults to engage in impulsive and high-risk behavior. Specifically, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, researchers have found that the frontal lobes of the brain may begin to mature only at age 17 or so. Because these brain regions are involved in planning, insight, and rational thinking, those findings suggest that brain immaturity may make it more difficult for adolescents and young adults to think rationally about many issues, including recognizing the long-term hazards of high-risk behaviors.
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During adolescence and young adulthood, thinking is typically distorted by a self-view in which people regard themselves as more significant than they actually are. This egocentrism manifests itself in many ways, including the invincibility fable, in which some young people (such as Avery) believe that they will never be seriously harmed by risky health-related behaviors. Another is the optimistic bias, in which people believe that they are less likely to become ill than others their age or gender.
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Peers exert a strong influence on the tendency of young adults to engage in risky behaviors. Young adults who more frequently engage in risky behaviors typically have more favorable social prototypes of those behaviors than do those who are less likely to take such risks.
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There is, of course, no single correct answer to this question. Each of the theories discussed in the text offers an important insight into Avery’s risky behaviors. The health belief model’s emphasis on perceived susceptibility to a health threat, for instance, explains why Avery fails to consistently practice safer sex behaviors. The theory of reasoned action offers the insight of the subjective norm as an explanation for Avery’s concern that his friends will think less of him if he insists on practicing safer sex behaviors. Similarly, the theory of planned behavior points out that Avery’s low degree of perceived control over such behaviors is another important barrier to his practicing safe sex. Although not detailed in the text, the prototype/willingness theory brings these psychological and social issues together in its assumption that health behavior is a function of a person’s motivation (behavioral willingness) and the social image associated with that behavior (social prototype). The stage theories, such as the transtheoretical model, point out that there are multiple paths to health-related behaviors and that Avery may be in different stages of readiness to change his health behaviors.
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Carefully planned health education campaigns that present information on several fronts and that are community-based (campus wide) are generally most effective. Successful programs also might be modeled after work-site wellness programs; they should also be voluntary, be related to health behaviors students are interested in, ensure confidentiality of health information, be convenient, and offer incentives for success.
Message framing is another critical factor in the effectiveness of health education. Gain-framed messages tend to be more effective in promoting prevention behaviors.
Even more effective may be the use of cognitive-behavioral interventions that are based on the two main features of stimulus-control and contingency contracting. These are useful in increasing health-promotive behaviors such as getting the flu vaccine.
A health campaign that only focuses on one of these interventions is less likely to be effective than when the interventions are used in combination to create a more comprehensive community program.