Training Room 3

Introduction

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, healthy living means making positive choices that enhance your physical, mental, and spiritual health. Healthy choices include choosing to

• eat a nutritious diet using Canada’s Food Guide
• surround yourself with a supportive social network
• be active every day
• get enough sleep
• adopt healthy lifestyle practices, such as cleanliness and dental hygiene
• attend regular medical and dental checkups
• take responsibility for your own health and wellness, including being an informed consumer

In Training Room 3 you will study the following topics:

• Nutritional Choices
• Physical Activity
• Sleep
• Regular Dental and Medical Checkups
• Being an Informed Consumer
• Protecting Yourself from Disease
• Your Role as a Caregiver

In Training Room 3 Project you will develop a personal plan for health and wellness to serve you now and in the future.

Outcomes

Training Room 3 addresses the following outcomes:

• explain strategies to optimize personal health and wellness
• perform effective and appropriate hand-washing techniques
• define terms and concepts related to disease and treatment of disease

Focus

Keep these guiding questions in mind as you work through Training Room 3:

• What personal choices can I make to maintain good health?
• What precautions can I use to prevent infection from communicable diseases?

Healthy Living Strategy

The Pan-Canadian Healthy Living Strategy, created by the Public Health Agency of Canada, is a framework for promoting and sustaining public health. It proposes healthy living targets for the year 2015 that include increasing the number of Canadians who

• make healthy food choices
• participate in regular physical activity (30 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous activity)
• are at a “normal” body weight, based on a Body Mass Index measure of 18.5 to 24.9

Nutritional Choices

People choose particular foods for many different reasons:

• convenience
• cultural customs or preferences
• lack of information regarding food choices
• based on routine or mood rather than hunger
• one person in the household does most of the meal planning, shopping, and preparation

“Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide” is a great place for accurate information on healthy eating. Two versions of this guide are available in many languages on the Health Canada website:

• “Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide”
• “Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide—First Nations, Inuit, and Métis”

Physical Activity

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, more than half of Canadian children and youth are not active enough for optimal growth and development.

Canadian girls are less active than boys, with only 38 percent of girls and 48 percent of boys considered active enough.

The Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines for youth recommend that inactive children and youth increase the amount of time they spend being physically active by at least 30 minutes per day and decrease the time they spend on television, computer games, and the Internet by at least 30 minutes per day.

Sleep

How much sleep are you currently getting? How much sleep do you need to maintain optimal health and performance? Answer

Consider some of the negative consequences of sleep deprivation:

• fatigue
• slower response time
• inability to pay attention
• weakened immune system

Read “How Much Sleep Do I Need?” Compare the amount of sleep recommended in the article to the amount of sleep you get each night. Do you find yourself sleep deficient?

Regular Dental and Medical Checkups

Part of healthy living involves proper maintenance of your body. Just as most people who drive a vehicle schedule regular maintenance appointments to keep the vehicle operating reliably and efficiently, you too need to perform regular checkups to keep your body working properly.

Consider the following questions:

• How often do you visit the dentist? The doctor? Other medical practitioners?
• What is your family philosophy on medical and dental care?
• What factors influence how often you access medical practitioners?

Two determinants of health have a direct impact on how often an individual might access medical care:

• personal health practices and coping skills
• health services

Being an Informed Consumer

One method of taking responsibility for your health and wellness is to actively seek knowledge about health, wellness, and your body. You hear all kinds of promises in the media that certain products will make you healthier, thinner, stronger, more popular, and the owner of a generally improved life. Can you believe everything that is presented to you via television, radio, billboards, magazines, the Internet, and so on?

Protecting Yourself from Disease

Hand Washing

How important is hand washing? Eighty percent of common infections are spread by our hands. According to Alberta Health and Wellness, hand washing, in combination with immunization, is the best way to prevent disease.

Bloodborne Pathogens

Bloodborne Pathogens and the Workplace

Some occupations are at greater risk for exposure to bloodborne pathogens, and communicable diseases in general. Health-care workers are at great risk, for example. But workers in other industries, such as education, dentistry, construction, hospitality, law enforcement, funereal services, veterinary services, and food processing, should also be aware of risks and take steps to protect themselves.

To cause infection, blood or body fluids containing a virus must gain entry into a person’s bloodstream. There are several ways a bloodborne pathogen might enter the human body:

• sexual contact
• opens cuts, wounds, or abrasions on the skin
• through mucous membranes (eyes, nose, mouth)
• sharps injuries (puncture wounds from needles or cuts from scalpels)
• indirect transmission (touching an infected part of the environment, and then touching your own eyes, nose, or mouth)

The highest-risk exposures are from sharps injuries or splashes to a worker’s mucous membranes, especially the eyes and mouth. Workers who interact with individuals who could bite them are also at risk.

Universal Precautions

Your Role as a Caregiver

What is your legal obligation as a person providing services in health care, community support, volunteer, or recreational settings?

As a caregiver you have access to private information about the people you work with. Alberta’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP) requires that you should have access to only that personal information necessary to do your job. FOIP also requires that you keep this information confidential at all times and only use it for the purpose for which you were given access.

You should disclose confidential client information only as necessary, with consent, as legally required or where the failure to disclose would cause significant harm to the client or others. The one exception to this rule is if you suspect that someone is being abused.

You need to be able to recognize and describe the signs of abuse and neglect and you need to know the appropriate steps to report this information. You will look more closely at this topic soon.

Unfortunately, you also need to take precautions to protect yourself from being accused of inappropriate behaviour. You should, for example,

• strictly follow all rules and procedures for conduct
• always maintain a professional relationship with people in your care
• if at all possible, never be alone with someone in your care, especially if the person is of the opposite sex

Training Room 3 Summary

You explored the choices you can make to enhance your personal health and wellness and the wellness of others.

In Training Room 3 Project you will use the information you gathered through various learning activities to create a personal plan for improving and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. By applying your learning to your own situation, you will be better able to enjoy a healthy lifestyle.

Real World

Many health issues and problems that you will experience later in your life have their origins in habits and routines that are established at an early age. The symptoms of lung cancer due to smoking, for example, may take 20 or more years to become evident. By establishing a good health and wellness plan early in life, you have a much better chance of enjoying your later years to the fullest!

Instructions

Step 1: Work through Training Room 3.

Step 2: Create a presentation that outlines your personal plan for a healthy living strategy. Incorporate the six topics of health you examined in this training room: nutrition, physical activity, sleep, checkups, consumer awareness, and disease prevention.

Your presentation should include

• your own personalized version of the Canada Food Guide
• your personal plan for physical activity
• your strategy for getting enough sleep
• your optimal schedule for receiving medical and dental checkups
• your personal strategies for protecting yourself from disease (such as safe practices, immunizations)
• your strategies for learning about nutritional health claims
• strategies and resources you can access to successfully complete your journey to wellness

Step 3: Respond to the Formative Self-Assessment Reflection Questions. Save your responses in your project subfolder. Name the file “TRR3_Self_Reflections.”

Step 4: Submit your presentation and reflection to your teacher for assessment.