Nursing Paper on Perceptions of Health among School-Aged Children
Good health is critical to school-aged children given that they are essential to a nation’s present as well as future. However, their perceptions as pertains to health and illnesses greatly vary, which in return impact their commitment to boost good health throughout their lives. This paper outlines interview responses from a school-aged child, which will help explain how such children perceive health.
Interview Responses
This interview involved a ten-year-old female school-aged child from the South Mountain School in New York City. The interviewee was an average performer and she came from a middle-income family. She was assured that any information she offered would not be shared with anyone else but would remain confidential.
Q1: describe several healthy and unhealthy behaviors
Interviewee: Eating fruits as well as vegetables is a healthy behavior that can improve a person’s physical health and can lengthen his/her life. Regular exercise is another healthy behavior that can reduce the possibility of getting serious diseases. Overeating is an unhealthy behavior that increases the risk of obesity and diabetes. Smoking as well as drinking alcohol is another unhealthy behavior that increases the risk of lung cancer and premature death.
Q2: if you eat a lot of fast food or candy, will it affect your health as an adult?
Interviewee: Eating a lot of fast food or candy can expose me to the risk of becoming obese or diabetic. This can affect my life as an adult because I will not be able to engage in a lot of physical activities. In addition, being diabetic will mean that I will have to inject myself with insulin as well as move around with medicine, which is not enjoyable.
Q3: is it important to exercise? Why or why not
Interviewee: Yes, it is important to exercise.
Exercising is important because it improves health and quality of life as well as reduces the risk of developing diseases such as diabetes, heart diseases and cancer.
Q4: what causes colds?
Interviewee: Colds are caused by viruses that can be transmitted from an infected person to another person that is not yet infected.
How about AIDS and Cancer?
Interviewee: AIDS is caused by a deadly virus that can be transmitted from an infected person to an uninfected person through unprotected sexual intercourse, sharing sharp objects and through transfusing infected blood. Cancer is caused by abnormal cell development, which results from eating unhealthy diet, excessive body weight, smoking, exposure to radiation and lack of exercise.
Q5: can you catch cancer by hugging a person that has cancer? Why or why not?
Interviewee: No I cannot catch cancer by hugging someone that has the disease. This is because the abnormal cells that cause this disease cannot be transmitted from one person to another through physical contact.
Conclusion
In conclusion, evidence from the interview indicates that the child has an accurate understanding on what health and illness entails. This is because the child is able to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy behaviors, how unhealthy eating habits can expose a person to certain types of illnesses as well as the health benefits linked to exercise. For instance, the child understands that eating fast foods and candy can increase the risk of getting diseases such as obesity and diabetes while exercising can boost overall health. This complies with the research documented in the text, which states that school-going children aged ten years and above can comprehend a lot of health-related information and hence can give elaborate responses as pertains to health and illnesses.