Community Health Advocacy

Within the past last years health concerns become more serious topic among
humanity. The importance of health is being provided by various organizations and
specialists. Nonetheless a tendency for making unhealthy choices and having
unhealthy habits still remains. A health advocate is a person who helps other
people to change or improve their health behaviors. By following specific steps, I
can become a health advocate in my community.
1. In my community that includes not only home environment but school where I
spend most of the time of the day, I would outline physical activity, namely barely
its absence among teenagers. Lack of physical activity for my peers refers to the
physical determinant of health. It is also important to mention that it is profoundly
connected with the Vitality concept: physical activity makes up two other aspects
of general well-being – healthy eating and positive self-concept. Physical inactivity
of a person inevitably entails some risk. It jeopardizes both healthy eating and self-
concept. Person who avoids physical activity due to the several reasons may also
avoid basic principles of healthy eating or have no understanding of it or even have
some mental issues connected to the eaten food-physical activity circle (for
instance different types and signs of an eating disorder). And eventually the
misunderstanding leads to the decrease in your self-esteem (for example by the fact
of how do you perceive yourself and form your body image, reflect your strong
sides and not fixate on your flaws).
2. Lack of physical activity is a serious problem because the aftereffects can arise
not only in future (which is also should not be forgotten about in case if you want
to have a healthy and safe life afterwards) but you face the difficulties related to it
every day. Physically unprepared individual may have problems with walking
upstairs, carrying a relatively heavy thing and even enduring usual daily tasks.
Signs also include shortness of breath, delayed onset muscle soreness, fatigue,
weakness and other things, such as different serious heart illnesses. Because of the
fact that world is extremely modernized and digitalized at this moment and the
isolation because of the COVID-19 spread a great number of people are working or
studying remotely at home. This causes a sedentary lifestyle, which, in turn,
creates a lot of problems. According to the WHO, Physical inactivity is one of the
leading risk factors for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and death worldwide. It
increases the risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Thus, act more
responsible towards your health by increasing the level of physical activity on a
daily basis.
3. From my perspective, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I have a
capacity to enhance people’s behaviors by changing their vision on health and
helping them to start and as a result I improve the concept of health in general and
gain experience in interacting with people in order to work on this in the future.
The reason why we should pay our attention to the physical activity is perfectly
simple: we are not able to live without an adequate level of daily physical activity
that supplies our organism energy and refreshes it. At the same time by doing this
we will avert mortally complicated diseases. By providing physical activity people
will form happier life, have a chance to explore our world and multiple choices of
activities, whether it is extreme and dangerous or peaceful and relaxing ones. My
target audience consists of teenagers, who are incredibly vulnerable to physical
inactivity and its influence. Moreover, their mental health (sometimes poor) is
exposed to the harmful factors. Everyone needs help and tutoring to be directed to
the right path.
4. For a rather complex task an accurate plan needs to be written. This includes the
name of my audience; what will I be doing to improve the society’s health; and
lastly the timeline of the task.
 Name – Incarnation of Wellness
 Tasks & Ways to tackle them – Raise awareness about physical activity
importance in our lives and take all the necessary measures: implement the
creation of physical activity clubs for every taste and occasion (for instance
gym, basketball, volleyball, football, handball, water polo, swimming pool,
hockey, figure skating, tennis, aerobics, jogging, gymnastics, acrobatics,
yoga, etc. Try to make as many organizations, as possible, in line with the
diversity of adolescents’ preferences) at the schools to make sure that
students can spend time with benefit at its territory; make more open-air
lessons when the weather allows to do for the purpose of spending more
time outdoors while learning something new and have it in the game form;
gather with your family, friends or another community to practice the things
that all of you like; choose walking or bicycling instead of driving by car or
using public transport (you will benefit both our ecology and your health by
improving your personal health practices); regardless of what type of person
you are – an adventurous risk seeker or the concentrated adherent of calm
activities, make a habit of strolling; always take breaks (warm up, go around
the place where you are or just move) for about 15 minutes every hour
during your work/study to avoid sedentary behavior; do not be afraid to try
and learn new activities; find something that suits your interests; make a
plan to be fully cognizant of what you do and not forget about it and offer
yourself a reward for motivation to persevere in being physically active; set
realistic goals: only after continued participation you can see considerable
results; be critical of what surrounds you and what you perceive from social
media – it may have a negative impact on your life. I am trying to connect
physical activity to the well-being that way, that we can make it independent
of the status of other determinants of health (you can still be physically
 active even if your socio-economic condition is not very high; you can be
physically active despite your previous personal health practices and
behaviors) and regarding the Vitality concept, where every three factors are
interconnected with each other and in entire harmony demonstrate well-
being, it is significant to appoint that regular appropriate dose of physical
activity represents healthy eating (without guilt and without over exercising
in order just to burn more calories) and positive self-concept with positive
self and body image.
 Timeline – My audience will begin to work as soon as all the willing to help
and take part in it gather together and will work until we markedly change
the situation, as an indication there should be increase in school sport clubs
attendance, general betterment of health condition, increment of stamina,
regular involvement in physical activity and boost in self-confidence. It is
hard to make exact date, because I do not plan to stop helping people
throughout my life in different situations and this organization will develop
and grow, not just be a temporary physical activity center, but a permanent
community that changes mindset and helps people to comprehend why we
need physical activity, how to start and what to choose.
5. As I have mentioned before (not so detailed, just a small part of particular signs)
first of all, an evidence that your work in which you put an effort succeed, is
reflection of teenagers understanding of the role that physical activity plays in the
whole health complex. Adolescents may have an idea to move forward with their
own plans to educate other people (after my audience raised awareness about this
topic). My job is definitely success if teenagers do not stop after making mistake
(high self-evaluation) and constantly work on their weak points for the long term,
and certainly if they quit repeating their bad habits in exchange for being
physically active and enjoy the utter feeling of their vigorous body moving. Last
but not least part is socialization on the basis of expanding your horizon by
physical activity.
Without any doubt, I will keep notes on my personal progress and experience and
community growth. Of course, it cannot be done within a very small period of time
so I need patience and concentration on my interest of improving people’s health.