Lifestyle Assessment for Better Health Discussion

Final Project

Health Psychology
“Lifestyle Assessment for Better Health”

Your paper in this class will focus on the assessment of your own lifestyle and recommended changes for better health. This health analysis will cover the major areas covered in this class. You may make use of inventories and tests discovered while reading and studying for this class and any actual medical tests you have had in the past year. The purpose of this is to increase your awareness of your own health lifestyle and ways that it could be improved. There will be two major components — a focus on general assessment measures (including your personal assessment) along with recommendations for personal lifestyle changes. In the Assessment section you need to find definitions, assessment tools, questionnaires, and/or guidelines that demonstrate understanding of the concepts. You are to write at least a 1200 word paper that is worth 15% of your grade. Please use APA format and cite at least four (4) sources. There are guidelines on using APA format and citing sources posted in Student Resources for you. Please submit your research paper by Sunday of Week 3.

Please ensure that the following topics are covered in your paper:

I. Assessment Measures

A. Diet

B. Exercise

C. Job and personal stress management

D. Risk factors for cardiovascular disease

E. Risk factors for cancer, diabetes and other illnesses

F. Family history and social support

G. Self-Esteem, sense of control and other psychological issues

II. Personal status and Recommendations For Personal Lifestyle Changes

Assignment Requirements (Use as a checklist):

· Use a 10 or 12 pt Arial or Times New Roman Font

· Double-space paper

· Minimum of 1200 words.

· Minimum of four (4) cited sources

· Use APA format and parenthetical citations right after cited material (See below)

· Make sure your name is on your paper

Extra pointers:

Thesis statements are at the end of the introduction paragraph and outline the key points that the rest of the paper will cover. This helps organize your work as you include a separate paragraph for each of the key points from your thesis in the body of your paper. Here are some good sources to help you – http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/thesis_statement.shtml and http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/545/01/

It would be a very useful tool for you all to refer to the assessment measure that you used for each of these categories (even including the webpage or textbook page) so that you can revisit this assessment process again in the future. For example, in the section on physical activity you could use this website and refer to this information –

https://health.gov/paguidelines/guidelines/summary.aspx