As a college student, I seem like an independent and responsible person because I have to go school to support my education, and work to support my daily life. As a result, I have no social life. Since I did not have time to take good care of myself, I ate unhealthy food such as: junk food and fast food; I often skip meals which damage my stomach. Based on my assessment results, I realized I had unhealthy eating habits. Therefore, I want to change my current diet to a healthier one to improve my heathy lifestyle.
Basically, I have no idea how to change my bad diet, how to begin a new plan, and how to apply this into my daily eating habit. By using these theories: health belief model, transtheoretical module, SMART principles, and dimensions of wellness, however, I will eventually have a good plan to build effectively my healthy goal. I start to add some specific essential ideas into sessions of each theory to organize my lists clearly.
The first theory I would like to apply in my plan is health belief model which is considered a model of behavior change that emphasizes the influence of personal beliefs on the process of creating effective change. This model identifies six factors as instrumental in predicting behavior change. In perceived threat factor, I perceive that I always have the usual symptoms, for instance, my eyes are blurred, my body is exhausted and my stomach hurts when I skip meals. I also feel so sleepy and lazy when I eat too much unhealthy food at once. In perceived barrier factor, I understand that I am experiencing these symptoms which may get worse if I continue with this unhealthy diet. In perceived benefit factor, I believe if I make a behavior change, I will help to reduce this threat. In the cue-to-action factor, I find something interesting to motivate my change by reading food and nutrition magazines to get more knowledge of healthy habits. In self-efficacy factor, I will face challenges on my healthy journey, but I trust myself to make a change successfully.
