Sociocultral_Factors_That_Influence_and_Persons_Health_and_Level_of_Physical_Activity

There are many different ways that a person’s health and level of physical activity can be influenced both positively and negatively. The sociocultural factors that influence a person include family, peers, media, religion and culture. These five factors can have a massive impact on the way people view and deal with health and physical activity. Everyone’s family has a massive impact over what they do and eat. When you’re young, your mum or dad will cook dinner for you and set it on the table and that’s what you would eat. So if your family has been taught or engages in bad habits of eating, such as eating regularly take out foods, and cooking foods in fats, it can influence a younger person in a negative way, by setting the example of that’s what’s good to eat so they will follow their parent’s examples, think that what they are eating is okay and eat all unhealthy foods. This can cause obesity at a young age, which can lead to other health related problems such as heart disease. Parents should be setting an example for their children by slipping in daily exercise into their everyday lives, such as working or riding to school/work instead of driving. If a family doesn’t encourage or perform a lot of physical activity then their child will do the same. If this were the case, the child would be more likely to just be sitting around all day, not going outside, and being by themselves a lot. This could lead to them feeling isolated and their social health declining, leading to other mental factors such as depression. A person’s friends or peers can have a positive influence on their attitude towards health and physical activity. If someone’s group of friends are all sporty and all participate in weekend/after school sports, then it is more likely that that person will participate too. This will increase their physical activity and their social health as they will be with their friends more. Their peers may also encourage you to do well in a certain area which will boost your self esteem. Healthy eating amongst friends can be, and is easily shared amongst each other. If your friend is a vegetarian, then you must cater for their needs if you are having them over to your place, or going out for the night, so you might try something new. Culture and religions have their own styles of food, clothing and beliefs that influence people’s attitudes towards health and physical activities. Some cultures, such as Muslim, the females have to cover up their bodies from head to toe and believe that they should only show their body to their husband. That makes it very hard for them to exercise so they just decide not to. In Australia, although we are very multicultural, we don’t have any places, such as gyms and sporting teams that are culturally sensitive to their needs. This then limits these woman to how much exercise they can do which will most likely lead to health related problems such as obesity and lack of skills such as hand-eye coordination. Religions such as Christianity, don’t believe in the use of condoms during sexual activities. This may increase the chance of them contracting a sexually transmitted infected, known as a STI, and passing them on. This can affect their health greatly as some of the STI’s can be deadly such as AIDS. The media has very many different perceptions. A lot of people think that the media is just a huge marketing scam. But the media does have some positives. Television broadcasts commercials that benefit people’s health and physical activity. The “little pinkie” campaign, aimed at young boys, shows that it’s not ‘cool’ so speed and be stupid in cars. There are also many commercials telling you about the dangers of smoking and sun safety. These all have a positive effect on people as it shows the outcomes if they aren’t healthy. This also gives them the knowledge of what happens to you if you do unhealthy things, which can then lead to them teaching and helping other people. Family, peers, culture, religion and the media all have the power to influence a person’s attitudes towards health and physical activity. These sociocultural factors interrelate to all the other determinants of health and the influences from the sociocultural factors can have a great effect on all of the other determinants.