Your Wellness
Taking Responsibility for your Health
What to Know about the
Health Triangle
 Shows relationships among the 3 kinds of health.
 1. Physical Health
 2. Mental-emotional Health
 3. Family-social Health
Each of these relationships forms a point on the triangle
and each side supports the other
Physical Health
 Physical health is the condition of a person’s body.
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Eat a well-balanced diet
Participate in regular exercise
Get at least 8 hours of sleep
Take care of your personal hygiene
Have regular medical and dental check ups
Avoid unnecessary risks
Avoid tobacco, alcohol, and drugs
Mental-emotional Health
 Mental-emotional health is the condition of a person’s mind
and the ways that a person expresses feelings.
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Face difficult situations with a positive and realistic outlook
Express your feelings clearly and calmly to others
Set priorities so that you can handle all of your responsibilities
Use your talents effectively to achieve your goals
Be patient with yourself as you learn new skills. If you make a
mistake think about how you can do better next time
 Accept responsibilities for your actions
Family-Social Health
 Family-social health is the condition of a person’s
relationships with family members and with others.
 Respect and care for members of your family
 Have a friendly, open attitude toward other people
 Pay attention to what you say and how you say it. Body
Language
 Be loyal, truthful and dependable
 Learn to disagree without arguing and show respect for
others.
Unbalanced Health Triangle
 What happens if one of the points of the health
triangle is missing?
 Expressing feelings is a skill that helps maintain which
side of the triangle?
 If this skill is lacking, the triangle can begin to lose its
balance and the other 2 sides are affected.
 What might happen to physical health? Social health?
 Stress. Family. Difficulty expressing your feelings.
 These factors diminish your health status.
Health Challenge
Thinking About Good Health
 Read each story carefully. Have a group discussion on
which triangle goes with the story. Then choose the
health triangle that best illustrates the young person
in the story. Put the stories with the correct triangle.
 Make sure all voices are heard and then make a decision.
Factors That Affect
Health Status
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1. Health Knowledge
2. Accessing health information
3. Behaviors
4. Influences: culture, media, technology
5. Communication
6. Decisions a person makes
7. Health Advocacy Skills 8. Heredity
9. Environment
10. Random Events
Health Knowledge
The information and understanding a person
has about health.
 When you understand information about a health
product and use it correctly, you promote your own
good health and prevent disease.
 Example: (Outside/ Sun Screen / Skin Cancer)
 Can you think of other examples?
Accessing Health Information
To access something means to obtain, get, or
find what you are looking for.
 When you access useful health information,
 You help yourself make decisions about products or services.
 You choose behaviors that will keep you healthy.
 A health service is help that is provided by a health-care facility or
health-care provider.
 If you have access to these providers quickly, your chances of
recovery are improved.
 A product is something that is used to restore or maintain health.
 Example: (toothbrush, sunscreen, prescription drugs
Behaviors
The way a person chooses to act or respond to
a situation.
 2 Types of Behavior that can Affect Your Health
 1. Healthful Behaviors
2. Risk Behaviors
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Promotes health.
Prevents injury, illness and
premature death.
Improves the quality of the
environment.
 Examples: wearing a seat belt,
 exercising regularly, and eating
 healthy foods.
Threatens health.
Can cause injury,
illness and premature death.
Damages and destroys the
Environment.
Examples: playing sports without
safety equipment, smoking and
drinking alcohol.
Influences such as culture, media,
and technology
 Culture is the arts, beliefs, and customs that make up a way of life
for a group of people at a certain time.
 What beliefs does your family have about eating breakfast, drinking
alcohol, and smoking cigarettes?
 Media are the various forms of mass communications.
 If you watch a TV commercial for pizza and then order one from
that shop, it is safe to say that your behavior was influenced by the
advertisement.
 Technology is the practical application or use of knowledge.
 Suppose you log on to the internet and read an article on ways to
protect yourself from violence. As a result you decide to start
locking your doors of your home & car. By doing this you can
conclude that your health status has been influenced by technology.
 What other ways can culture, media and technology influence you?
Communication Activity
 Pass Right – Pass Left
 Topic: communication
 Concept: Skill of listening: This activity will show the importance of listening
and how difficult that is when you are not concentrating on what is being
said because you are busy doing something else.
 Method: Classroom Activity
 Time Frame: 10 minutes plus discussion
 Materials Needed: The Wright Family Story; paper clip for each student.
 Activity: Have the group form a circle. Give each person a paper clip. Tell the
group that you are going to read them a story and every time they hear and
word that sounds like right or left, they are to pass the paper clip in their
hand to the person on their right or left depending on what they heard.
Start reading the story slowly so that they have a chance to catch on to
what you want them to do. After a few passes stop the story and ask them
how they are doing. Check to see that everyone has a button in his hand. If
your group is typical, some will have 2 or 3 paper clips and others will not
have any. Redistribute the paper clips and continue reading the story, faster
as you go. Stop the story a couple more times to check on how they are
doing.
Discussion Ideas
 What was happening during this activity?
 What made the activity difficult to accomplish?
 What impact did what other people do have on your ability to
stay up with the story?
 How did you feel during the activity?
 What would have made the activity easier to accomplish?
 How hard was it to listen and pass the objects at the same time?
 How much of the story can you remember?
 How seriously did everyone take the activity?
 What impact did the level of seriousness have on the activity?
 What can this activity tell us about communication?
 How hard were you concentrating during this activity?
 How hard were the people concentration on either side of you?
 Describe a situation you have had where someone was not really
listening to you when you were telling them something?
 How did that make you feel?
Communication Skills
The ways in which a person chooses to share
feelings, thoughts and information with
others.
 Your ability to speak clearly and listen carefully affects
your relationships. This may affect your health status
or the health status of others.
 Example: Suppose you keep angry feelings bottled up
inside you. Eventually, this choice of behaviors can
have a negative effect on your health status because
you still feel angry. Often, talking things out will help
reduce your anger.
Communication Skills that can Affect
your Health Status
 Resistance Skills – are methods a person can use to say no
to an action or situation that could damage health status.
 What do you do when a friend asks you to do something you
don’t want to do? Do it or resist?
 Conflict-Resolution – are steps that you can take to settle
a disagreement in a responsible way.
 Disagreement with a friend – Choose to fight or
communicate?
Decisions Involve Choices
 Many decisions are made automatically, or are of little
consequence to your health (what to wear).
 Many decisions have long-term consequences. (what
you choose to eat, whether you choose to smoke or
drink and you choose to spend time with) are
decisions that can affect your health status now &
later.
Responsible & Irresponsible
Decisions
 Responsible Decisions
Irresponsible Decisions
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Can harm health
Result in unsafe behaviors
May be illegal
Show disrespect for self and others
Show disregard for guidelines of
parents and others
Are part of normal character
development
Promote health
Keep safety in mind
Follow laws
Show respect for self and others
Follow guidelines of parents/adults
 Demonstrate good character
Behavior Choices
 (Need sticky notes & Chart Paper)
 List examples of responsible and irresponsible
decisions based on what you saw on the previous
slide.
 Explain how each example is related to personal
health status or health status of the environment.
Health Advocacy Skills
Skill used to influence the health behavior and decisions of
others and to advance health-related beliefs and concerns.
 A health advocate is a person who influences the health behavior and
decisions of others and advances certain health-related beliefs and
concerns.
 What other people do in your community, nation, and world affects your
health status.
 Illegal drug use is linked to violence, accidents, and crime. (If you become a
health advocate for teens to be drug free, and more teens actually do turn
away from drugs as a result of your actions, then you have helped improve
the health status of people in your country.
 What other examples do you have of a health advocate?
 Whenever you work to improve the health of others, you act as a health
advocate. At the same time, you improve your own health status.
Heredity
The passing of characteristics or traits from biological parents
to their children.
 Characteristics passed to you either promote your health
status or do not promote your health status.
 Inherited characteristics may therefore be protective
factors or risk factors.
 Protective factors – something that increases the odds of
a positive outcome, such as healthful traits.
 What happens if you engage in harmful habits, such as
smoking and living on a high-fat diet.
 Risk factors – something that increases the odds of a
negative outcome.
 When you know you are at risk for something you make
choices that offset this factor.
Primary Health Risk Factors
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Inactivity
Obesity
High blood Pressure
High levels of Cholesterol
Stress and Tension
Smoking
Gender
Heredity
Age
Which ones can you control?
Environment
Everything around a person.
 Environment includes the air you breathe, the water
you drink and the place in which you live.
 What would be some environmental factors that
might compromise your health status?
Random Events
Is an incident over which a person has little or
no control
 What would be an example of a random event?
Health Triangle Project
 “Tab Book”
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 Materials Needed:
 Paper, Magazines, Colored Pencils, Glue, Scissors, Pictures, Clip Art, Pencil,
Markers
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 Create your own personal triangle using the information that you learned
about the Health Triangle and the self inventory you took in class (What
Level is your Wellness?). Use the space below to make your plan. Label the
sides of the triangle. (Physical Health, Social Health and Mental/Emotional
Health)
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 Brainstorm ideas on each side of the triangle and write the ideas down.
Collect photos, clip art, drawings or magazine pictures that represent your
physical, social and mental health.
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 Bring supplies to your next class to put your Health Triangle together.