Course Reflection

Everything that I have learned this semester has been impactful and interesting. This class has really helped me learn about all of the topics, and also to form opinions and ideas on the topic. I think that this class can really open your eyes to a lot of things. I felt like I already knew everything there was to know about some of the subjects and I was completely shocked to learn all of the stuff that I didn’t know. All of the information in this class will be useful in my personal life and career. 

My favorite sections were the nutrition, weight management, and exercise, sexual health, and health promotion and disease prevention. These were modules 3, 4, and 9. I think that these are very important modules for anyone. Most people believe that they are educated on these subjects, when really they are missing information that they really need to know. These modules cover major parts of your health. I think that I have benefited the most from these and I will be using the suggestions in these modules for my own life, and also to educate my friends and family. 

I have enjoyed reading everyone’s posts! Thanks for a great semester and good luck in the future! (:

Blog #14

I decided to blog about the Eve Eisler video. 

I really enjoyed watching it and I think that more people should see it. Eve Eisler brought up a bunch of good points during her speech. My favorite part was when she gave the examples of all of the women who had joined in on the fight to stop violence and abuse against women. The woman who stopped thousands of female circumcisions and opened a house for girls to come stay in seems absolutely amazing! 

I think that they way Eve Eisler approached these situations is great. She is doing a great job of raising awareness for violence and abuse against women. She is a great, entertaining speaker who can really grab your attention and make you listen to what she has to say. I hope that her efforts become more recognized and accepted so that we can minimize violence against women. 

In the video Mrs. Eisler said “When we give in the world what we want the most, we heal the broken part inside each of us.” I think that this is a very true statement and we should use the things that have hurt us to make us better people. Somewhere, there is someone that is broken in the same way as we are and if we can heal ourselves, we can help heal them too. 

Meghan McGehee

Blog #13

I completely disagree that admitting a problem involving drugs or alcohol shows personal weakness. I think that if you are able to admit a problem, you have to have personal strength. When people have a problem, they are basically saying “Okay, I’m messing up and I need to fix this”. Let’s just face it. Admitting that you made a mistake is a really hard thing to do. A lot of times when people have made a mistake, they try to put a few little excuses in here and there, but to admit that YOU have a problem with drugs or alcohol is putting it all on yourself. Admitting a problem can be embarrassing to a person, and to their family and children. People know that being addicted to drugs or alcohol can also affect employment and pretty much every aspect of your life. It would take a strong person to deal with the emotional and physical distress. 

I also feel that if you are able to admit that you have a problem, then you are probably ready to change for the better. Hopefully, anyone who has had a family member or friend that was addicted to drugs or alcohol was very supportive. I have known people that have had to go to rehab for both things and during this time, you really need your family. I think that it is important for family members to be involved in the process if that is what the patient wants. When family and friends are involved, caring, and supportive, it shows the patient that someone believes in them. Knowing that someone believes in them could be really helpful when they are starting to lose faith in themselves. 

As we all know, alcohol and drug abuse is a very serious problem. Once you get going, it is pretty hard to stop yourself because you need the substance. When people admit they have a problem, they know that they are going to get weaned off of the substance. They know how hard it is going to be to go through the process and stay sober or drug-free. They also know that this could be a lifelong problem. It’s not a problem that just goes away and they will have to stay strong and be able to resist relapse. To know all of this and to make the decision to go through it, would take a very strong person.

Meghan McGehee

Blog #12

I think that it is very important for the stigma and shame around mental illness to disappear. By reading our power point, I realized that one half of people will experience a mental illness at some point. I think this is a statistic that should be shown more often so that people suffering from mental illnesses will realize how many people actually will have one. It would also point out to people that look at mental illness negatively that so many people suffer from mental illness and that it is not fair to assume that they would be thieves, substance abusers etc. 

People that suffer from mental illness should not feel ashamed of their condition. There are a lot of factors that can play into it such as trauma, daily stress, deaths, and many more. People with a mental illness need to feel support from their family and friends to receive treatment to help them feel better. Family and friends also need to remember to be patient. I think that this would help the patient because they wouldn’t feel so ashamed of their condition. 

I also feel that having PSA’s about mental illness would really help. If these announcements contained facts and statistics about mental illness and also encouraged people to receive the treatment that they needed, it would reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness.

Blog 11

I think that if everyone lived with their future in mind, most of us would have completely different behaviors.

Two of the things that would definitely change for a lot of people are diet and exercise. Everyone would need to focus on eating the recommended servings of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and also get the recommended amount of exercise.

People would also consider not drinking and smoking because this can be bad for your health. Alcohol can be linked to depression, cancer, and can also cause poor judgment. Poor judgment can cause someone to drive while intoxicated or have unsafe sex, which can lead to car wrecks and STI’s. Of course, whether or not alcohol is involved, unsafe sex can be damaging to a person’s health. Smoking can cause cancer and gum disease, decrease lifespan, and increase your risk of heart attack. Smoking can also have a negative impact on those around you due to secondhand smoke.

Prescription drug abuse and illegal drug abuse would not happen if people were concerned about their futures. These drugs can affect the heart, brain, lungs, GI tract, kidneys and many other things.

Then there are also minor things that most people don’t even think twice about. Not wearing a seatbelt, driving too fast, being a “couch potato”, not washing your hands, taking good care of cuts and scrapes, having dangerous hobbies such as riding motorcycles and skydiving, and good dental hygiene etc. These can really have a big effect on health.

Sometimes it seems like you can’t do anything without it being bad for your health. Every time you check the news, there is new research that found something else that can cause a disease. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that you can prevent it, because so many things cause it. But even if we do have one bad habit or behavior, it doesn’t mean that we should take on a bunch of bad behaviors. We should do the best that we can to keep ourselves healthy and disease-free.

References

WebMD. (nd). Alcohol abuse health center. Retrieved from http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/alcohol-abuse/default.htm

WebMD. (nd). Mental health. Retrieved from http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/cocaine-use-and-its-effects

WebMD. (nd). Smoking cessation health center. Retrieved from http://www.webmd.com/smoking-cessation/default.htm

Blog 10

I think that there are many factors that can influence women to adopt healthier lifestyles and preventative behaviors.

One very important factor is having a safe place to exercise. Sometimes people don’t want to pay gym fees, so having a good outdoor area to walk, run, and ride bikes is important. Women also need to be able to buy healthy foods to maintain a proper diet so it is important to have a nice grocery store around. They also need access to information and health care. I think that a lot of good information can be found on the internet, but since not all of it is reliable, women need to learn which sites to trust. Speaking to a doctor about nutrition and exercise can also be very helpful. Overall, access is important.

I also think that it helps to have a support group. I know women that have joined gyms together and gone to Zumba and water aerobics courses. I feel that women can really encourage each other and help each other get motivated. I know that when I am not motivated to work out, I need someone to give me the extra push. Support groups can also help with other things, like trying to quit smoking. 

For preventative behaviors, I think that having a newsletter sent through email is a good way to get information out. A lot of people don’t want to go to a class or clinic to learn about the behaviors, but the internet is a great way to get information to a lot of people. With the internet, people can read the information and watch videos that explain the disease and the behaviors used to prevent it. For women that would rather have face-to-face meetings, I think that classes where flyers and power points are used can be very effective.

Meghan McGehee

Blog #9

The biggest challenge for me to regular exercise and a healthy diet is my busy schedule. I am currently taking 19 hours of school and a lot of it is writing intensive. I rarely have time to do anything besides study and when I do, I want to rest and relax. How do I rest and relax? By laying in bed watching T.V. (my big problem is Texas Rangers baseball) or by going on a date, which usually ends up being dinner. If I’m relaxing at home, I usually want to eat something quick so that I don’t have to make a big effort. Around my house, my parents buy “quick foods” such as chips, dips, frozen pizzas, cheese and crackers, and a few frozen dinners. Although my mom does cook healthy dinners most of the time, I like to snack. Since I am really tired at the end of the day I have a hard time getting up the motivation to go exercise.

Although I’m not a perfect eater or exerciser, I have been making progress compared to last spring. Last spring, I was pretty much eating out all of the time and NEVER exercising. I gained weight faster than I could blink. I went from 138 to 148 and then from 148 to 170 and I just thought “whoa, this has got to stop.” My boyfriend and I decided not to go out to eat so much and we started walking 3 miles a few times a week. I am eating much better now and have gone back down to 158. Even though the weight is not completely gone, I’m glad that I have made progress. After we got used to walking 3 miles, we decided to ride bikes every other day so that we wouldn’t get burnt out on exercise.

My goal over the next year is to get this last 20 pounds off and continue exercising and eating healthy. Over the next five years, I will still be in school and it will be a challenge to keep it up. But, I do have a few goals for myself. I used to run at least a mile every day, and I would really like to do that again. I also enjoy tennis and golf and would like to make more time in my schedule to practice. I have really started paying attention to the nutrition of certain foods such as fish and vegetables and I also got more serious about taking my vitamins every day. I hope that over the next five years, I will be able to keep this up and continue to improve my health.

Meghan McGehee

Pictures received from:

http://media.photobucket.com/image/diet%20cartoon/finickyfiftyfive/diettips.jpg?o=3
http://media.photobucket.com/image/exercise%20cartoon/NeoMorphUK/exercise-cartoon.jpg?o=1

Blog #8: Menopause Interview

I chose to interview a woman going through menopause about taking hormones. 

The woman that I interviewed was taking hormones and then when the WHI study came out she quit taking them. Once she quit, she couldn’t deal with the symptoms and decided to get back on them. When she didn’t take hormones, she had these symptoms:

• When she has a hot flash, she starts feeling nauseous and feels like her heart is racing. Then she feels like she can’t breathe and starts getting very hot. It interrupts whatever she is doing at the time, and it keeps her from sleeping well. 
• Vaginal dryness causes intercourse to be painful and she has no libido.
• She felt that when all of the symptoms of menopause start happening, it feels like you lose your personality. She is distracted by hot flashes, because she has so many of them. She said that if someone touches her, she feels like she is going to have a hot flash so she can’t snuggle with her husband at night.

She decided that she would take hormones even though they do have risks because the symptoms of menopause are not worth the disruption of your whole life.

 Picture retrieved from: http://media.photobucket.com/image/menopause/sherma_photos/WOMEN/menapause.jpg?o=143

 

Meghan McGehee

Blog #7

I do not agree with the statement that having an STD means a person is immoral, promiscuous, or is of low social status. 

I would say that sometimes people do get STD’s because of promiscuous behavior. But, that is not always the case. I know a woman that got Chlamydia from her husband. The man was cheating on her with a few women when he would go away for work. She had no idea, but when she found out she left him. Years later, when she was trying to have a baby, she could never get pregnant and her doctor told her that it seemed that Chlamydia was the reason. I’m not positive, but I think that it had damaged her Fallopian tubes. I’m sure it was emotionally traumatizing enough that her husband had an affair, but then she couldn’t become a mother because of it.  She did not contract an STD because SHE was promiscuous; she contracted it because her husband was. 

When I was in high school, I had an acquaintance that had Herpes. She was dating a guy and didn’t mention her STD to him and they were sexually active. I don’t know if he got it from her, but I think that it was wrong that she didn’t tell him. 

It seems like a lot of people contract STD’s due to dishonesty of their partner. I think that in any new relationship, past sexual relationships should be talked about. I also feel that both partners should be tested for STD’s when they plan to become sexually active. It’s not fair for someone who thinks that their partner is STD-free to contract one. STD’s can cause serious health problems, as well as hurting emotionally. 

Meghan McGehee