When someone thinks of a health care professional, their minds usually go straight to a doctor or a nurse. Many individuals are not aware that a health care professional can be more than just a doctor or a nurse, they can be a counselor or a nutritionist. Health education is defined by the Joint Committee as “any combination of planned learning experiences using evidence based on practices and/or sound theories that provide the opportunity to acquire knowledge, attitudes, and skills need to adopt and maintain healthy behaviors.” It is more than just a doctor or nurse taking care of you physically, it is also when a person mentally understands the concepts of health and maintaining it before they are exposed to any risk factors. The goal of health education is to make sure people are informed about the things they could be exposed to before they put themselves in the position to be exposed and to know beforehand what could happen to them if they do not treat their bodies right.
One reason that I was interested in health education/promotion as a career is because I personally believe that it is not being taught enough. A lot of people out there do not grasp the risks that are involved in the types of behavior that they engage themselves in. As a health education specialist, I hope to inform people more about their behaviors. One area of health education that really interests me is sexual health. People today, especially young adults, are not as well informed about sexual health and the risk factors they are allowing themselves to be exposed to. Schools are not stressing the importance of sexual health education to the students, and therefore, a lot of the time they are not aware of the risks they are putting themselves at. They see things on television and in movies and believe that the way things are portrayed in movies is how they are in real life. The population that I would like to focus on the most is young adults. It is important that they are informed earlier on in their lives instead of putting themselves at risk and having to, later on in their lives, deal with a serious consequence of their actions. The level of prevention that I would like to mainly focus on is Primary Prevention. Young adults are the most easily influenced, so by giving the knowledge about what their actions could lead to before they engage in these actions, it would have a real benefit down the line.
Some of the risk factors that are involved in sexual health are STDs and other diseases. Some modifiable behaviors that people should be aware of are wearing condoms and sexual abstinence. Young adults are going to engage in sexual activities whether they are taught health education or not, so it is better that they are informed about the risk factors beforehand so that they can take the steps to prevent them. By staying abstinent, they can prevent themselves from being exposed to anything but if they do decide to engage in sexual activities, it is better that they are informed about the importance of condoms beforehand so that they do not expose themselves to any risk factors such as STDs.
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Taking Care of YOU 