Question

Reflective summary on Chapters 3 and 4 of the book Principles of Health Behavior by Edberg

Answer 1

The book, "Essentials of Health Behavior" by Mark Edberg describes about the importance of having a healthy behavior in our day to day life. The common health related issues and the necessary behaviors that must be followed in order to avoid or to prevent such issues are discussed by the author. He focuses on the complex social-ecological web, which consists of both individual and environmental factors that contributes to our behavior and how important it is to engage in behaviors that will promote our health.

The chapter 3 belong to the section II of the book, which consists of the theories and approaches that focuses on the roots of health behaviors in a multidisciplinary perspective. This chapter emphasizes on the importance of understanding the theoretical base of health behavior, which will further explain why certain behaviors are exhibited and why certain behaviors or not exhibited. It also analyzes health behaviors across multiple disciplines so that we can better examine why and how they occur. The other topic presented in this chapter is the antecedents, which are the instances that occur before a specific event. For example, a boy always washes his hands with soap after using the restroom. In this case, using the restroom is the antecedent because it occurs before a health behavior of washing hands.

The chapter 4 focuses on the individual health theories such as the health belief model, which states that a person will be willing to change his health behaviors based on the perceived susceptibility, severity, benefits and barriers related to that behavior. The theory of planned behaviors (also known as the theory of reasoned actions) states that, a person's attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control forms the intention regarding a specific behavior, that will further result in performing that behavior.

This chapter also includes two models of behavioral changes namely, the transtheoretical model which focuses on assessing the readiness of an individual to engage in a new healthy behavior and also provides strategies that will help the individual to perform that behavior. The six stages involved in this process of change includes, precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance and termination. The other model is the precaution adoption process model which explains, how an individual makes a decision for taking actions and how the person converts that decision in to an action. The steps followed in this model includes, being unaware of an issue, not engaged in an issue, undecided about the action, deciding about the action, engaging in action, and maintaining the action.