MPU 3313 Health and Wellness

Faculty Science And Technology

Semester 1 / Year 1

MPU 3313

Health and Wellness

MATRICULATION NO : 911129015025001
IDENTITY CARD NO. : 911129-01-5025
TELEPHONE NO. : 017-4620901
E-MAIL : najibroslan91@oum.edu.my
LEARNING CENTRE : Sabah, Kota Kinabalu
 MPU 3313 Health and Wellness

Question 1

Health and wellness are not similar, health refers to physical bodies being free from
illnesses, and however wellness is overall balance of physical, social, spiritual, emotional,
intellectual, environmental or occupational well-being. Wellness is something that a person
strives for the whole life while health is something like when a person wants to lose weight,
decrease blood pressure or so on, as soon as a person does this he/she is considered healthy.
While wellness is a state of being that continues for the whole lifetime.

One of the responsibilities are for action, a person has to differentiate between modifiable
risk factors and non-modifiable risk factors. Modifiable risk factors are when there are things
that can be changed, that can be taken action to either reduce or prevent risk, such as to stop
smoking, stop drinking, and avoid recreational drugs and so on. Non modifiable risk factors are
things that cannot controlled, such as age factor, gender or prone to illnesses. Realisation these
factors can adjust activities to suit personal needs.

Another one is concern for others. A person who is concern for others centred enjoy
greater sense of wellness compared to a person who is not concern for others, they are more
comfortable and adapting to different situations while still maintaining their wellness such as a
new office or new colleagues. They can also be good role models for shy people who wants to
join activities that involves things like meeting new people, these people centred individuals
show their naturally caring attitude through words such as praises or thanks, and also through
actions such as helping shy people meeting new friends. The people centred individuals also tend
to be uncritical and not judgemental towards others about their lifestyle choices such as when
someone started smoking. They can adapt in a socially responsible manner to fit in with same
minded individuals

And lastly is health awareness and sound decision making. An individual needs to be
aware of all the proper things that’s needed such as medical check-up for beginners to choose
right intensity or the right workout, make sure all the information are facts and not based of fairy
tales, some nutritious myths or exercise myths are based of stories not facts and they can even be
very wrong. What makes a healthy lifestyle succeed is the sound decision making, this can only
be done when proper guidelines are follow and all proper facts are known.
 MPU 3313 Health and Wellness

In conclusion all these things are important to attain health and wellness, and at the end
of the day it all falls down to individuals, the who want it will go and grab it but individuals who
does not want it will not make a difference in their lives even with the proper tools and
information, and make sure “no pain, no gain” is not necessarily true as being more in pain while
achieving health does not necessarily makes you healthy. Self-motivation and self-rewarding is a
good way to attain health and wellness because no matter how much external motivation can be,
it can never push ourselves unless we decided to move on ourselves.

(518 words)
 MPU 3313 Health and Wellness

Question 2

Health is more than a matter of individual choices, family or any other social relationship.
Therefore symptoms of illnesses or diseases can be seen as an imbalance in a person’s total state
of being and not simple the malfunction of a part of the body, we also define health as a state of
complete physical, social and mental wellbeing, and not simply because there is no disease or
infirmity, I am going to discuss about physical health.

The characteristic of physical health are usually related with stamina, strength, flexibility
or even a good body composition. Therefore a physically fit person can carry out everyday task
more easily compared to a physically unfit person, and can even have more energy left at the end
of the day for any leisure activities. A person with low body fat is mostly considered related with
fitness by the public, however this is not all true as an unhealthy person can also be low in body
fat, for e.g. anorexic.

The activities for a physically healthy person are firstly is the mode of activity, these can
be seen as strength building such as lifting weights or even sprinting, stamina building such as
jogging or swimming, flexibility training such as yoga or stretching. Secondly is the frequency of
training such as once per week, every day or three times per week. Thirdly is the intensity of
training, a person who wants to maintain his health will most likely do the same intensity every
time as the individual does not want increase or decrease his health however a person planning
on increasing his health will push for very intense exercises in hoping to get the ‘burn’ and
increase his health every time. Lastly is the duration, stamina exercises requires a long duration
compared to strength exercises.

The beliefs of a physically healthy person is that they want to live an energetic life such
as being able to run, play sports, play with their pet, children or even grandchildren without
being so tired or easily prone to injury. An age is just a number to them, it doesn’t define them, a
typical 50 year old can be seen with a big gut and not so healthy however to them 50 does not
mean they have to stop being healthy and achieving physical health targets in live. Gender also
doesn’t define them where a girl can compete in a weightlifting competition even up to par with
men.
 MPU 3313 Health and Wellness

The attitude of the physically healthy is amazing, only positive thoughts because they live
life with full of energy. They will only encourage others to be healthier and can even be an
inspiration for the unfit person who wants to make a change.

Lastly physical healthiness is how it makes us feel, being healthy can make us feel great,
can make us look good and even fit clothes better. People will start recognizing a healthy person
with good comments, especially when the unfit becomes fit. It boggles my mind why people
does not try to be physically healthy as there is literally nothing to lose.

(512 words)
 MPU 3313 Health and Wellness

Question 3

Social media are computer based technologies that allow individuals, companies,
governments or any other organizations to view, create and share information, ideas, career
interests, and any other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. The
variety of stand-alone and built-in social media services currently available introduces challenges
of definition; however, there are some common features such as it has interactive web based
application, the user can generate content, comments, photos or videos. The user can create
specific profile for certain website. Social media also facilitate the development of online
networks by connecting an individual to others or other groups.

Social media can enhance social wellness among young adults by firstly creating good
rapport with others by building a strong social support network. Most young adults feel that
maybe no one understands the problems or struggle they go through, social media can help them
by increasing the width of networks and find the proper people to connect and interact with.
Young adults struggling to find jobs can use social media by creating online groups with the
same problem, some are finding jobs or another can offer vacancies to others, it’s a win-win
situation.

Secondly young adults can interact with people of other cultures, backgrounds and
beliefs. Without social media we can only know people within our ease of reach which is most
likely our friends from school, work or neighbourhood. With social media, young adults can
open their eyes and realise how big the world is, understand different culture of different places
and can adapt to other places since they won’t be so culture shock. Being close minded will not
make us grow as a person, it will make us narrow minded. Seeing others how they life their lives
can bring joy to us as it is a new experience.
 MPU 3313 Health and Wellness

Thirdly it can solve interpersonal conflicts in a healthy and respectful manner, for
example a parents divorce is a tough time to go through, without the proper help, a person can be
worse from who they are. Social media can help create groups from all around the world who are
going through the same thing, they can share experiences or share tips on how to improve
themselves. Since the group consist of people with the same conflict, respect will come from all
sides they all want to improve themselves.

In conclusion social media can create many wonders like never did before, connecting
with new people across the world, finding long lost friends, finding opportunities that never even
existed before or even learning things we never knew, we live in the 21st century with all the
information right at our fingertips, we just have to make sure we use it for good. Social media
can change people lives, it broadens our size of network tremendously from around the world.
However like all things there will be some negatives, some people will not follow the unspoken
rule of social media like not starting a fight with each other or being courteous. It is just up to us
which kind of user we want to be and what kind of social media world we want to live in.

(525 words)

References

 Benkler, Yochai (2006). The Wealth of Networks. New Haven: Yale University
Press. ISBN 0-300-11056-1. OCLC 61881089.
 Lardi, Kamales; Fuchs, Rainer (2013). Social Media Strategy – A step-by-step
guide to building your social business (1st ed.)
 MPU 3313 Health and Wellness

Question 4

Staying healthy physically can help you stay healthy emotionally too. If you're eating the
right food and keeping fit by exercising, your body will be strong and help you to cope with
stress and also fight illness. Eating well and exercising often when you are young will also help
you stay in good health later in life. Getting regular sleep is another really important way to stay
healthy. Having late nights can leave you feeling tired the next day. It can be difficult, but try to
have at least 6 - 8 hours’ sleep each night.

One of the ways to stay healthy physically is a nutritious diet and exercise. It can be hard
to keep a healthy diet when there are temptations all around. It’s important to get a balance diet
of the right amount of each food group, it also includes drinks. Your body needs to stay hydrated
to keep healthy. But think about what you drink, try to avoid sugary drinks. Exercises keeps the
heart pumping, it can reduce weight and cholesterol level. Exercises make us younger than we
are, by being fit at 50, we can still catch up with 40’s or 30’s.

To keep our mind healthy is basically by ‘exercising’ it. One of the ways is to keep
learning, experts think that higher education keeps our mind strong by staying active ,
challenging our mind with mental exercises can activate certain area to stay active. Another way
is repeat what we want to know, when we want to memorise something we can repeat it, write it
down, say it again and again, this will get us the habit of memorising. Repetition can be the most
potent learning tool when properly timed, but spacing it out is also important, don’t cram too
much info in a short period of time.

Our spirit is also in need of keeping it healthy. The most important is staying close to
your faith, going back to religion helps a lot of people; it makes us calm and has a sense of
purpose in life. Enjoy life’s blessings is also a way to keep our spirit healthy, it makes us feel
happy and always full instead of hungry for more and never satisfied. Look for ways to give
without receiving such as voluntary work, it will make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside and
realise how easy our life is compared to the struggling ones.
 MPU 3313 Health and Wellness

Body, mind and spirit are equally important, they complement each other. Body is good
for what can be seen on the outside, what people see is usually the first appearance, we can be
physically healthy but doesn’t mean our mind and spirit are healthy. Keeping our mind healthy is
good for when our body can no longer takes us forward, our mind is what makes us who we are,
it is what keeps us sane, exercising our mind is just as important as our body. Lastly is our spirit,
it is what keeps us at peace, us humans needs a purpose in life or we will not feel complete, there
will always be a gap that needs to be filled, and this is when someone with no purpose will those
gaps with negative things such as recreational drugs. Lastly it is for ourselves to keep us healthy
as everyone wants to live a long and healthy life.

(563 words)

References

 World Health Organization. (2006). Constitution of the World Health Organization –

Basic Documents, Forty-fifth edition, Supplement, October 2006
 Lalonde, Marc. "A New Perspective on health." Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services;
1974.
 World Health Organization. Life expectancy at birth, accessed 20 April 2011
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Question 5

Eating disorder is a type of mental disorder where a person has a strange attitude towards
food and negatively affects the individual’s health, this essay focus on anorexia nervosa and
bulimia nervosa. The cause of this illness is not pinpointed yet, biological and environmental
plays a role, where the overall idea of beauty is related with thinness and also magazines creating
very unrealistic targets of beauty. Those with a traumatising past can also lead to this disorder
such as sexual abuse, or abusive childhood where one is forced to eat food. Treatment can be
effective for many eating disorders. This typically involves counselling, a proper diet, a normal
amount of exercise, and the reduction of efforts to eliminate food.

Anorexia nervosa or mostly known as just anorexia, it is where a person has a fear of
gaining weight, a desire to be thin and extreme food restriction. An anorexic person is a very thin
person but sees themselves as overweight and will most likely deny that they have a food
disorder problem. They will use any method to remain very thin such as throwing up, exercise
excessively or take laxatives. This can cause problems like infertility, heart damage and even
causes women to stop having periods. To treat anorexia involves restoring a healthy weight; treat
the psychological problems, and the behaviours that promote the problem. While medications do
not help with gaining weight however they may be used to help with associated anxiety or
depression.
 MPU 3313 Health and Wellness

Bulimia nervosa or commonly known as bulimia, is an eating disorder that includes binge
or excessive eating but it is also followed by attempts to get rid of the food, such as vomiting or
taking laxatives, excessive exercising or water fasting where they only drink water for days.
Most people with bulimia however have normal weight but because of the constant throwing up
may result thickened skin in the knuckles and breakdown on the teeth. The main cause of this
disorder comes from peer pressure to remain a certain weight, poor self-esteem or obesity.
Globally, bulimia was estimated to affect 6.5 million people in 2013. About 1% of young women
have bulimia at a given point in time and about 2% to 3% of women have the condition at some
point in their lives. The condition is less common in the developing world. Bulimia is about nine
times more likely to occur in women than men. Among women, rates are highest in young adults

In conclusion both of these disorders are dangerous; they can cause permanent damage to
the body or even death. It is our responsibility to recognize the symptoms of people with these
disorders and help them instead of shunning them. These disorders need more awareness
especially in Malaysia, where very few people even know they exist, so they can be easily
helped. Therapy and support from friends and families can help people with mental disorders to
recover easier and faster. These mental disorders can seem harmless to the untrained eye and
think it is just a phase where young adults go through when actually it can be the cause of their
death.

(520 words)

Reference

 Houy, E; Debono, B; Dechelotte, P; Thibaut, F (2007). "Anorexia nervosa associated

with right frontal brain lesion". The International Journal of Eating Disorders.
 Uher, R; Treasure, J (2005). "Brain lesions and eating disorders". Journal of neurology,
neurosurgery, and psychiatry.
 MPU 3313 Health and Wellness

 Garfinkel, PE; Newman, A (2001). "The eating attitudes test: twenty-five years later".
Eating and weight disorders : EWD.