Healthy Role Models Research Articles

Muva physical activity intervention improves social functioning in people with a severe mental illness: A pragmatic stepped wedge cluster controlled trial

Severe mental illness (SMI) imposes a significant burden on individuals, resulting in long-lasting symptoms, lower social functioning and impaired physical health. Physical activity (PA) interventions can improve both mental and physical health and care workers can serve as healthy role models. Yet, individuals with SMI face barriers to PA participation. This study evaluated the effects of Muva, and assessed if mental health worker's (MHW) characteristics were associated with clients' change in social functioning. Muva, an intervention package primarily created to increase PA of people with SMI, places a special focus on MHWs as they might play a key role in overcoming barriers. Other PA barrier-decreasing elements of Muva were a serious game app, lifestyle education, and optimization of the medication regime. MethodThis study is a pragmatic stepped wedge cluster controlled trial. Controls received care as usual. Mixed-effects linear regressions were performed to assess changes in the primary outcome social functioning, and secondary outcomes quality of life, psychiatric symptoms, PA, body mass index, waist circumference, and blood pressure. Results84 people with SMI were included in three intervention clusters, and 38 people with SMI in the control cluster. Compared to the control condition, there was significant clinical improvement of social functioning in interpersonal communication (p=<0.01) and independent competence (p=<0.01) in people receiving Muva. These outcomes were not associated with MHW's characteristics. There were no changes in the other outcome measures. ConclusionsMuva improved social functioning in people with SMI compared to care as usual.

A call for healthy role models

When leaders pave the way to self-care, their teams will follow.

Physical Activity among Nepalese Teachers; the Perspective of Role Modeling

Physical activity is any form of involvement in exercise or movement of the body that uses energy. Teachers also need an appropriate amount of physical activity because they are observed by their students in many ways, including their exercise behavior and fitness. Although an adult requires a minimum of 150 minutes (or at least 3 days) of additional physical activity in a week, this study shows that the sampled teachers were not in this mark. This cross-sectional survey of 344 teachers in 46 secondary schools in Bagmati Province of Nepal found the physical activity behavior among Nepalese teachers with the perspective of role modeling for health promotion. It has been argued that teachers who have average healthy behaviors and lifestyles with respect to physical activity neither make them healthier nor contribute to the creation of healthy role models in schools. The age and gender of the teacher were found to determine the degree of physical activity. More than two-thirds of her teachers were not reaching the recommended weekly physical activity level. More than two-fifths of the teachers did not receive training once a week. Physical activity among the teachers was recommended to present them as healthy role models.

Attitudes towards disordered eating in the rock climbing community: a digital ethnography

BackgroundRock climbing is an antigravitational sport in which a low body weight may intuitively seem beneficial. A small number of studies have found an increased prevalence of disordered eating among adolescent and adult climbers. However, to date there has been no qualitative research into the attitudes towards disordered eating and body image in the rock climbing community.MethodsThis explorative study employed a netnographic approach with the aim of understanding how topics related to food, dieting, and disordered eating in the climbing community are addressed in online conversations. Discussion forums on nine major climbing websites as well as three climbing-related forums on the online community Reddit were searched for posts and comments related to the research question. The collected data were then assessed through thematic analysis, generating a number of themes and subthemes.ResultsFive overarching themes, labelled “Is there a problem?”, “Subjective experiences”, “Why and how is weight an issue?”, “The importance of context”, and “What can be done?”, were identified among the forum posts. Most forum users acknowledge that eating disorders are indeed a problem relevant to the climbing community, although a significant minority disagrees. While the assumed benefits of a low weight are clearly a dominant idea among climbers, weight may have become less important over time. Forum users also attest to ways in which climbing may in fact be helpful in fostering a positive body image, such as highlighting performance over aesthetics or emphasizing wholesome community values.ConclusionsThis study demonstrates that the topic of disordered eating and negative body image is far from a blind spot or a “dark secret” within the rock climbing community, as is sometimes claimed. An undue focus on low body weight among climbers must be balanced by proper nutritional advice and healthy role models, not least for young climbers who may feel pressured to lose weight as a quick but short-sighted way to boost performance. Clinicians should be aware of the prevailing ‘weight talk’ in the climbing community and be attentive to negative body image and disordered eating in their patients.

College students’ attitudes about ways family, friends, significant others and media affect their eating and exercise behaviors and weight perceptions

Objective: This study examined college students’ perceptions of how parents, family, friends, significant others, and the media influenced eating and exercise behaviors and weight perceptions. Participants: Forty-one college students, mostly female, participated in interviews. Methods: A Grounded Theory approach, using open coding and memoing, was used to uncover key themes. Results: Healthy cooking and exercise role models at home were viewed as positive, encouraging healthy eating and exercise. Criticism was perceived as negative for healthy habits and weight perceptions. Friends and significant others who practiced positive health habits and were body accepting were uplifting. Cultural transmission of the thin ideal could occur through the media. Some noted that media messages were becoming more positive. Conclusions: Using peers, especially friends, as collaborators in interventions, and discussing parental influences on eating, exercise, and weight perceptions may positively impact obesity prevention programs and interventions for college students.

DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF INSTRUMENT TO MEASURE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A HEALTHY ROLE-MODEL IN MEDICAL SCHOOL

Background: A medical teacher as a healthy role-model has a critical role in supporting health promotion effectiveness in medical school. However, an instrument to measure the characteristics of the medical teacher as a healthy role-models is unavailable. This study aimed to develop and validate a questionnaire to evaluate these characteristics by analyzing a model from previous grounded theory.Methods: A total of 442 medical teachers at the Faculty of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, were invited to participate. We used hierarchical component models (HCMs) to develop our path model. A partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) were then used to analyze this model.Results: Twenty-six items from seven constructs supports our model. The construct of socially healthy (SH) has the most substantial effect on constructing healthy people's characteristics (H). The constructs of healthy role-models (HRM) in medical schools are mainly influenced by healthy people characteristic (H).Conclusion: A questionnaire with 26 items grouped in these seven constructs showed good reliability and validity. Seven constructs have relevance to the characteristics of a healthy role-model in the medical school model.

Fit for the job? How corporeal expectations shape physical education teachers’ understandings of content, pedagogy, and the purposes of physical education

ABSTRACT Background: People often expect physical education teachers to look fit and athletic, to do lots of physical activity, and to eat well. While ample research exists on physical education teachers’ bodies, relatively few scholars have investigated how physical educators relate corporeal expectations to broader ideas about subject content, pedagogy, and the purposes of the school subject. Aim: The specific aim of the paper is to identify the assumptions about content, pedagogy, and educational purposes that teachers make when they talk about a perceived need for physical educators to look fit and athletic. Method: To frame our work theoretically, we draw from a Swedish didaktik of physical education tradition and employ Bakhtin’s concept of speech genres, and Wertsch’s concept of privileging. Our empirical material consists of transcripts generated from 6 focus group and 6 individual interviews (24 teachers in total, average age of 40 years, average teaching experience 11 years). Findings: Data suggest that when teachers use an ‘athletic-looking teacher as healthy role model’ speech genre, they tend to privilege: (1) a particular version of health as subject content that involves not being too overweight and maintaining physical functionality in sports. This content is based on biomedical conceptions of health which foreground exercise, eating and weight, and a pathogenic reduction of risk; (2) particular pedagogies in PE that put the teacher at the centre of the pedagogical situation, and; (3) a certain educational purpose in PE, which is to educate citizens for healthy lives through participation in sport. With respect to this purpose, increasing body weight enters the genre as a potential obstacle for educational success. Discussion: The findings raise questions concerning appropriate curricular content and its relation to teacher identities. They suggest that learning possibilities may be missed when certain content, pedagogies, and outcomes are privileged. The findings also indicate how wider voices are implicated in the speech genre. Conclusion: The paper is concluded with reflections on the possibility for change regarding expectations of physical education teachers’ bodies and pedagogies.

Icelandic Prevention Model for Rural Youth: A Feasibility Study in Central Appalachia.

The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility of implementing the Icelandic model for Primary Substance Use Prevention (IPM) in rural Central Appalachia. Guided by the IPM's theoretical framework, 26 stakeholders from a single county in West Virginia were purposefully recruited during the spring of 2019 and divided into four focus groups. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim and analyzed into themes based on IPM premises. Focus group material produced seven themes: Drug use overall, Drug treatment and other service needs, Poverty, Parenting/Caregiver practices, Transportation, Downtime/Leisure time activities, and Opportunities for solutions. General support was found for the potential of the IPM in the region. Preferably, the implementation of the model should coincide with attention to the adult population as drug use was reported to be plaguing the whole community. Treatment options were few and mostly far away. General poverty and lack of public transportation further stifled progress and potential for change. Organized leisure time activities and programs for youth were scarce and mostly seasonal. Suggested solutions for the adult community included workforce and skill training, coupled with increased opportunities for organized leisure activities for youth, and access to healthy role models via schools and faith-based organizations. We conclude that implementation of the IPM would be feasible to prevent substance use initiation and progression among youth in the rural Central Appalachia. We present several specific recommendations for policy and practice that address factors unique to this environment to initiate the IPM implementation development and suggest initial model application strategies.

Factors influencing healthy role models in medical school to conduct healthy behavior: a qualitative study.

ObjectivesThis study aimed to identify the factors that support or inhibit medical teachers as healthy role models in medical school to conduct healthy behavior. MethodsThis qualitative study involved semi-structured in-depth interviews with medical teachers categorized as healthy role models in a medical school from a previous survey. Ten medical teachers were selected using purposive sampling. Three medical teachers were interviewed by direct meetings, and the remaining were phone interviewed, with one interview facilitated by chat using WhatsApp. Transcribed interviews were coded openly. Themes were finalized through discussion and debate to reach a consensus. ResultsTwo themes were identified: perceived facilitators and perceived barriers, which were classified into four categories and 13 subcategories: intrinsic facilitators (motivation, conscious awareness, having physical limitations, knowledge, and economic reasons); extrinsic facilitators (the impact on doing a particular job, feedback, time, and environment); intrinsic barriers (the lack of self-motivation and having physical limitations); and extrinsic barriers (the burden of responsibilities for being medical teachers and environment). ConclusionsFactors that support and inhibit medical teachers as healthy role models in medical school are influenced by intrinsic and extrinsic factors. This result could be used by medical schools to design appropriate interventions to help medical teachers as healthy role models in conducting healthy behavior. More studies are needed to explore other factors that influence medical teachers to conduct healthy behavior. During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthy role models in medical schools are vitally important and significantly contribute to the overall health of a nation.

A Study of suicidal ideation in different subgroups within a sexual minority by assessing variables that may reflect subjective experience of distress among minorities

INTRODUCTION: A discord between natal role and gender identity, poor self and societal acceptance of one’s sexual orientation/gender identity, physical, verbal and sexual abuse and discrimination, from family, friends, and peers during and after coming out, fear of law-enforcement, loneliness, and lack of coping mechanisms and healthy role models can lead to poor physical and mental health outcomes among the LGBTQ youth in India. For sexual minority people, sexual orientation-related discrimination and prejudice might be associated with feelings of thwarted belongingness. Given that perceived burdensomeness, thwarted belongingness and Psych-ache. have been associated with SI in other populations, included sexual minority. Methodology: - Advertisement in form of Flash banners will be generated on websites, forums and social media related to sexual minority. Within the advertisement, volunteers who were at least 18 years of age (no other inclusion criteria) were invited to complete a survey that took approximately 20 min to finish. The Flash Banner containing the performa for Thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness, Suicidal ideation, The Psych-ache Scale. Result &amp; Conclusion: Interpersonal construct perceived burdensomeness, which accounts for some increased prevalence of suicidal ideation for adult gay men, lesbian women, and bisexual men and women. Clinicians can utilize this information by using cognitive and behavioural interventions to decrease perceived burdensomeness and, thus, decrease suicide risk for sexual minority adult clients.

Self-Tracking Health Over Time: From the Use of Instagram to Perform Optimal Health to the Protective Shield of the Digital Detox

Instagram and self-tracking technologies enable multiple ways to perform and represent the body and health. No research has yet explored how self-tracking technologies and self-representations of health identity on social media, in particular Instagram, influence health “sharing” online and individual health management offline. To enable a thorough investigation of how self-tracking mediations of identity construction work in practice, through a textual and thematic analysis of empirical ethnographic data from online content, reflexive diaries and semi-structured interviews with 14 participants, this research examines the use of these converged technologies to share health-related data on Instagram in the performance of optimal health identities. Participants identified pressures that arose from this continual performative identity of being a healthy role model under persistent self- and community surveillance, which also led to the development of powerful compulsions to use these technologies to document and share many aspects of health and lifestyle. Over time, the participants attempted to disengage and detox either temporarily or permanently from Instagram, to enable a protective shield from the pervasive, normalized surveillance and community practices. Most interestingly, even when they removed these technologies and platforms from their daily lives, participants still felt neglectful to their devices, to themselves, and to their communities online in their abstinence and resistance to perform optimal health practices.

Exploring the directionality in the relationship between descriptive and injunctive parental and peer norms and snacking behavior in a three-year-cross-lagged study

BackgroundPeople’s eating behavior is assumed to be influenced by what other people do (perceived descriptive norms) and what others approve of (perceived injunctive norms). It has been suggested that adolescents are more susceptible to peer norms than parental norms, because they experience a strong need for group acceptance that leads to conforming to peer group norms. The current study examined changes in snacking behavior and four types of social norms (i.e., parental and peer descriptive and injunctive norms) that promoted fruit and vegetable intake among adolescents. This study was the first to examine whether snacking behavior also influenced norm perceptions by testing the directionality of these associations.MethodsThe study consisted of 819 participants (M [SD] age = 11.19 [1.36]; 46.1% boys), collected at three time points (T1 = 2016, T2 = 2017 and T3 = 2018) during the MyMovez project. Self-reported frequency of snack consumption, perceived parental and peer descriptive and injunctive norms were assessed. The primary analysis consisted of a series of cross-lagged autoregressive models specified in a structural equation modeling framework.ResultsModel comparisons testing the descriptive and injunctive norms in separate models and in an additional combined model revealed evidence for bi-directional associations between norms and snacking behavior. Descriptive peer and parent norms were not found to have an effect on subsequent snacking behaviors. Perceived injunctive parental norms were positively associated with healthy snack food intake and negatively associated with unhealthy snack intake (forward direction). Injunctive peer norms were negatively associated with healthy snack food intake. In addition, higher unhealthy snack food intake was negatively associated with the perception of descriptive and injunctive parental norms 1 year later (reversed direction). We did not find peer norms to be more closely associated with changes in snacking behaviors compared to parental norms.ConclusionsParents expecting their children to snack healthy had a positive influence on healthy snacking behavior whereas only acting as a healthy role model did not. Future research should address the possible interaction between descriptive and injunctive norms. Research should also take into account the bi-directional relations between eating behaviors and normative perceptions.

Health Lecturers and Students Views’ about Healthcare Workers’ as Healthy Lifestye Role Models: a Qualitative Study

Background : Health education institutions as producers of healthcare workers have a duty to demonstrate healthy lifestyles to the students as the future healthy role models. Objective : This research aimed to describe the views of health lecturers and students about their role and the effect of healthcare workers’ behavior as healthy lifestye role models. Method : An exploratory qualitative study with in-depth interviews was conducted in 2017. Six lecturers and five studentss were chosen as key informants, who were selected from the medicine, nursing, and health nutrition departments. We analyzed the data manually, by identifying categories then created into themes. Result : Healthcare workers were judged as a representative figure to demonstrate healthy lifestyles. Unhealthy lifestyle practice by healthcare workers was considered a violation of their responsibility. Furthermore, it will decrease the image and respect of healthcare workers which will cause people to trust less in the treatment process and health counseling, and finally, the society will imitate unhealthy lifestyles. Furthermore, in medical education, this influences lecturers’ self-efficacy in health counseling, causing guilty feelings and shame for not implementing a healthy lifestyle although they had already learned health science. Moreover, the students sometimes feel sadness and disappointment, since not all lecturers can become healthy lifestyle role models. Conclusion: Healthcare workers are role models of healthy lifestyles in society and expected to be in any setting. Therefore, they should appropriately respond to becoming someone who qualifies to be imitated and be a good example of a healthy lifestyle in society.

Preparing student nurses to be healthy role models: A qualitative study

There are national and international expectations for nurses to be healthy role models. This study aimed to investigate student nurses', nurse educators' and registered nurses' experiences and perceptions about being healthy role models and to explore whether nurse education prepares students to become healthy role models. The study used an exploratory qualitative design and was based in the south of England. Participants (n = 39) included student nurses, nurse lecturers and registered nurses. Data collection was conducted through focus groups and data were analysed using thematic analysis. The themes highlighted nurses’ understanding of the key features of being a healthy role model, and perceptions that working as nurses does not support individuals to be healthy. Participants had varied views about whether they should be healthy role models or mirror society and share the same struggles with their health. Students and registered nurses reported inadequate understanding of health promotion and that there was a lack of healthy lifestyle content within undergraduate nurse education. Participants also considered that role modelling healthy behaviour would not in itself influence behaviour change. In conclusion, there needs to be preparation and support for student nurses to be healthy role models from the outset of nurse education.

Planning, Development, and Implementation of a University-Led, Low-Cost Employee Wellness Program in a preK-12th-Grade Public School District.

A healthy preK-12th-grade school environment is critical to student well-being and success. As role models, school employees play a significant part in creating a healthy environment. Research suggests that employee wellness programs (EWPs) may help school employees adopt healthier lifestyles and, therefore, be healthier, more productive, and serve as healthy role models for students. This article describes the process by which a school district in central Texas partnered with a local university to plan, develop, and implement an affordable EWP. A university-led leadership team sought input from employees, including administrators, and conducted a 4-week trial. These resulted in an EWP that provided health risk appraisals, fitness testing, group exercise classes, education seminars, online wellness resources, and blood draws/analysis. During the first 4 years, membership ranged from 107 to 384 (10-37%), and the annual cost of the program ranged from $49 to $116 per participating employee. University-led EWP programs can support, at a low cost, the health of school employees. Despite low employee engagement, need was demonstrated and feedback was positive. Challenges identified include time demands and lack of principals' support. Future considerations include targeting principals, utilizing the Human Resources Office, and strategically building a culture of health.

Understanding Interpersonal Influences on the Use of Formal Health Services among a Population of Iranian Women in Reproductive Age: A Qualitative Study.

BACKGROUND:One of the most important factors contributing to using formal health care services by women is people who are involved in the social network around them.AIM:This study aimed to understand the interpersonal influences on the use of formal health services among Iranian women of reproductive age.METHODS:This study is a deductive content analysis approach based on the Health Promotion Model. Twenty-two semi-structured interviews were done with women of reproductive age and health care staffs in Qom, Iran. Transcripts were analysed by a deductive content analysis approach based on the Health Promotion Model (HPM).RESULTS:Three main categories and eight subcategories were drawn consisting of (1) social support with 4 subcategories including “Family support and influence”, “support of religious people”, “support of health care providers” and “negative social support”; (2) social pressure and expectations with 2 subcategories including “feeling pressure due to role-playing” and “society’s expectations regarding women’s health”, and (3) healthy role models with 2 subcategories including “family role models” and “modeling friends and peers in taking action for treatment”.CONCLUSION:A positive interpersonal influence in women acts as a strong incentive to seek health care when they are suffering from a disease, and prevents the chronicity of the disease by timely treatment.

Exploring the effectiveness of physical activity interventions in women with previous gestational diabetes: A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies.

Women with previous Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) have seven times the risk of Type 2 diabetes later in life compared to women without GDM. Physical activity can reduce this risk and most women with previous GDM are not physically active.AimsTo explore: (1) effectiveness of physical activity interventions for women with previous GDM; (2) factors that women with previous GDM perceive influence their physical activity; (3) how these factors are addressed by the interventions.MethodsA systematic review of quantitative (aim 1) and qualitative (aim 2) studies with a mixed-methods synthesis (aim 3) was conducted in October 2017 following Cochrane methodology. Of 8101 articles identified, twenty-eight studies were included in total: 18 in Review 1 and 10 in Review 2.ResultsFour interventions significantly increased physical activity and 14 had either mixed effectiveness or no changes in physical activity. Reporting of intervention components and study quality varied greatly. Relevant qualitative factors included accounting for childcare issues, social support and cultural sensitivities. Interventions that incorporated these factors were associated with effectiveness. Education about how to reduce future risk of Type 2 diabetes and using pedometers in interventions were not associated with intervention effectiveness. Other factors that future interventions should address consist of ‘putting others before yourself’; ‘putting off lifestyle change’; ‘lack of support from healthcare professionals’ and ‘being a healthy role model for families’.ConclusionCombining the results of qualitative and quantitative studies can provide a nuanced understanding of the effectiveness of physical activity and lifestyle interventions.

Physical educator and/or health promoter? Constructing ‘healthiness’ and embodying a ‘healthy role model’ in secondary school physical education

ABSTRACTThe following sociologically orientated study explores how two physical education (PE) teachers at two secondary schools in North West England construct the notion of ‘healthiness’, and how this informs their health-based PE practice. The research process was influenced by figurational sociology [Elias, N. (1978). What is sociology? New York, NY: Columbia University Press], and the use of in-depth, reflexive interviews allowed emergent beliefs of the teachers in relation to ‘healthiness’ to be made evident, as contextual elements of their lived-in world surfaced. Within health-based PE, the teachers embodied a ‘healthy role model’ to match dominant PE discourses, whereby teachers must work on their capacity to help pupils learn, and work on their own ‘healthy bodies’ simultaneously. It is suggested that notions of ‘healthiness’ constructed by PE teachers develop within the social contexts of their personal and professional lives as complex spaces that provide dilemmas, opportunities and possibilities within which the teacher constructs, adapts and embodies a ‘healthy role model’ to enhance both long and short term (self) interests.

Parents as Role Models: Associations Between Parent and Young Children's Weight, Dietary Intake, and Physical Activity in a Minority Sample.

Objective We examined the association between parent and child fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake, physical activity (PA), and body mass index in an ethnic minority and low-income sample. Methods The study sample consisted of 86 children ages 5-7years (80% Hispanic) and their parents. Three parent health variables (healthy weight, recommended F&V servings per day, and recommended weekly PA) were used to create a healthy role model index. Associations between the parent index and corresponding child health behaviors and weight were examined. Results Most parents (53.5%) were not healthy role models, 30.2% were limited healthy role models, 16.3% were good role models, and none were excellent role models; most parents and children did not meet guidelines for healthy weight, F&V intake, and PA. Parents who scored higher on the index were more likely to have children with higher levels of F&V. Furthermore, parents who had a healthy weight were 3.7 times more likely to have a child who had a healthy weight. Additionally, parents who were consuming the recommended servings of F&V per day were 10 times more likely to have children who were also consuming the recommended servings of F&V per day compared to parents who were not consuming the recommended servings of F&V per day. Conclusions for PracticeThese findings suggest the important role of parental modeling of healthy behaviors to their young children among minority/low-income families. Parents may serve as an important mechanism of change for children's health status by increasing their own healthy lifestyle behaviors.

Nurses as role models in health promotion: Piloting the acceptability of a social marketing campaign.

To pilot the acceptability to practising nurses of the concept of being healthy role models as regards obesity and weight. Nursing standards expect nurses to act as role models of professionalism, including maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Many healthcare employers wish to instigate values and social norms about professional behaviour in staff. A mixed methods study comprising two stages. In Stage One, an online survey was used to develop an intervention, which was then evaluated by a rapid intercept survey with open-ended questions. Insights from 71 obese nurses, recruited at a 2016 nursing conference, were used to develop a social marketing campaign encouraging a social norm around professional behaviour as regards healthy lifestyles and obesity, with the message that "first impressions count" in staff-patient encounters. The campaign was tested with 79 nurses at three English hospitals. In Stage One, 58% agreed that nurses should be role models and 48% that being obese made the public less likely to trust their public health messages. In Stage Two, the campaign concept of "first impressions count" was widely understood and accepted, but nurses found the introduction of a professional expectation around personal behaviours unacceptable. Nurses accept an expectation that they are healthy role models but refute its value when confronted with real-life scenarios. Other aspects of identity were privileged to avoid engaging with the healthy role model message. Personal health behaviour was seen as part of a private domain and not part of their public presentation in professional life.