Individual reflective report on the social marketing campaign. Healthy Essay

Individual reflective report on the social marketing campaign. Healthy Minds Student diet and health concerns - Essay Example If it smells bad it’s to be avoided, and if it smells good then it’s to be enjoyed. We do this with our food, smelling it to see if it is still good to eat, which is why rotten food emit such a foul odour. The same thing is supposed to be true with taste. If it tastes bad, then it is bad, and should be avoided; and if it tastes good, then it should be partaken of and enjoyed. Or so the theory goes, which is why our prehistoric ancestors had been able to make it out of the prehistoric age and make it possible for us, hundreds of generations hence, to be alive and write about good food tasting good. But given what we know now, about proper nutrition and health, it’s right to say that all food that tastes good is not good for you. The words of the good science teacher notwithstanding, it is important to inform the young people today, who make it a point not to listen and to sneak away at the first instance possible, about the merits of healthy eating (and disadvanta ges of unhealthy eating) such as the following: (1) Improving the health of prospective mothers would give children a better start in life, reduce infant deaths, and also the numbers of low birth-weight babies; (2) Educational attainment can be improved and risk of mental illness reduced as well as road deaths, if children’s health could be ascertained; (3) The UK could save up to ?100 billion a year if working-age ill health were reduced; (4) If adults turned from unhealthy habits, 30% of circulatory diseases could be avoided, ?2.7 billion of state funds saved due to reduced alcohol abuse, and ?13.9 billion of social costs avoided in terms of reduced drug-fuelled crime (HM Government. 2010). That the adults of today are in a bad way is not debatable. Already, overweight and obesity has begun to cause as much preventable disease and death as does cigarette smoking. While the interest is to get younger people on the bandwagon towards healthier eating habits, findings to be arr ived at in this study would also pertain to social marketing for the health habits of adults. This reflective paper will present this writer’s ideas about the way social marketing could create an impact in the minds and hearts of our youth, particularly teen-agers, on the merits of eating a healthy diet and living a wholesome lifestyle. Healthy people, healthy nation The need to develop a healthy generation of people is not the sole concern of the individual, but more important the community and the nation. This is the reason why the UK has prioritized the promotion of healthy eating in its health policy agenda (EPPI-Centre. 2009). What may seem trivial in the grand scheme of things, such as the matter of telling children to eat their peas and liver and putting up with the inevitable grimaces, is actually a matter of state priority. The diet children are introduced to early in life become a habit in their teen years, and a compulsion in their adulthood. More than this, during that period in life when children’s bodies and minds develop fastest, starving them of essential nutrients to support this accelerated growth robs them of the maximum potential they would have attained. Long-term studies are still being conducted to determine the exact effects of poor nutrition on health and development in later life (Wachs,