english essay on healthy

Essay on Health for Students and Children

500+ words essay on health.

Essay on Health: Health was earlier said to be the ability of the body functioning well. However, as time evolved, the definition of health also evolved. It cannot be stressed enough that health is the primary thing after which everything else follows. When you maintain good health , everything else falls into place.

Similarly, maintaining good health is dependent on a lot of factors. It ranges from the air you breathe to the type of people you choose to spend your time with. Health has a lot of components that carry equal importance. If even one of them is missing, a person cannot be completely healthy.

Constituents of Good Health

First, we have our physical health. This means being fit physically and in the absence of any kind of disease or illness . When you have good physical health, you will have a longer life span. One may maintain their physical health by having a balanced diet . Do not miss out on the essential nutrients; take each of them in appropriate quantities.

Secondly, you must exercise daily. It may be for ten minutes only but never miss it. It will help your body maintain physical fitness. Moreover, do not consume junk food all the time. Do not smoke or drink as it has serious harmful consequences. Lastly, try to take adequate sleep regularly instead of using your phone.

Next, we talk about our mental health . Mental health refers to the psychological and emotional well-being of a person. The mental health of a person impacts their feelings and way of handling situations. We must maintain our mental health by being positive and meditating.

Subsequently, social health and cognitive health are equally important for the overall well-being of a person. A person can maintain their social health when they effectively communicate well with others. Moreover, when a person us friendly and attends social gatherings, he will definitely have good social health. Similarly, our cognitive health refers to performing mental processes effectively. To do that well, one must always eat healthily and play brain games like Chess, puzzles and more to sharpen the brain.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Physical Health Alone is Not Everything

There is this stigma that surrounds mental health. People do not take mental illnesses seriously. To be completely fit, one must also be mentally fit. When people completely discredit mental illnesses, it creates a negative impact.

For instance, you never tell a person with cancer to get over it and that it’s all in their head in comparison to someone dealing with depression . Similarly, we should treat mental health the same as physical health.

Parents always take care of their children’s physical needs. They feed them with nutritious foods and always dress up their wounds immediately. However, they fail to notice the deteriorating mental health of their child. Mostly so, because they do not give it that much importance. It is due to a lack of awareness amongst people. Even amongst adults, you never know what a person is going through mentally.

Thus, we need to be able to recognize the signs of mental illnesses . A laughing person does not equal a happy person. We must not consider mental illnesses as a taboo and give it the attention it deserves to save people’s lives.

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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Childhood Obesity — Importance Of Good Health

Importance of Good Health

• Categories: Childhood Obesity

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Published: Mar 14, 2024

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How to be Healthy Essay

Introduction, keeping fit, eating well, maintain a healthy weight, getting enough sleep, lifestyle choices.

Almost every person hopes to have a long, healthy life. However, many persons do not recognize the fundamental life choices that when made, can enable them live healthy, and often take these choices to be sacrifices that are not worth making. Choosing to adopt a healthy lifestyle has several benefits to the body such as a significant improvement of life expectancy, having a life free of disease and ailments, having a fit body, and the overall well being of the body.

Today, most of us focus on making outside changes in order to look healthy, such as using cosmetics. What we do not realize is that what we put in our body and how we handle it ultimately determines how we look, feel, energy levels, and the general health of the body. In order to be healthy, a person does not necessarily have to make radical changes to the lifestyle, rather, it involves making simple small changes to everyday life.

Changes such as taking the stairs instead of the lift, adding a fruit to a meal, having a glass of water at every opportune instance, and eating snacks in moderation are just some of the few steps to having a healthy life. In order to live healthy, a person should focus on keeping fit, eating healthy, checking on their weight, getting enough sleep, and avoiding risky behaviors such as smoking and taking alcohol in moderation.

One of the greatest impediments to living healthy is the lack of physical activity. Although many people recognize the benefits of keeping fit, they avoid it either because they think it is a waste of time, or they are used to a sedentary lifestyle. The truth is, the more a person engages in physical activity, the healthier they become.

Physical activity does not have to be vigorous, in fact, even simple activities such as gardening, walking, and partaking in domestic chores can greatly improve one’s health. Even recreational activities such as cycling, dancing and swimming can help in keeping fit.

The benefits of physical activity include a reduction of the risks of heart diseases and diabetes, improvement of mental health, strengthening of bones and muscles, and helping with a number of health niggles such as digestion and poor posture, among other benefits.

Eating well entails striving to have a balanced diet at all instances. A good diet not only helps in weight management, but it can also improve a person’s health and the overall quality of life. Every meal should include plenty of fruits and vegetables, grain products and legumes, but less of foods that contain more calories and fats. Although proteins rich foods such as meats are important to the body, they should be taken in moderation, and the focus should be on leaner meats (mainly white meat) and foods with little or no fat.

Consuming dairy products with little or no fats, such as skimmed milk, is another simple plan for reducing the quantity of calories entering the body. Eating habits such as eating while one is not hungry, skipping breakfast, and eating fast should be avoided. A person should also strive to drink as much water as possible since the body requires at least 8 cups of water each day.

One major step to being healthy is to maintain a healthy weight, and this may entail shedding off excess weight, gaining weight for underage persons, or maintaining that ideal weight. Eating right and participating in physical activities can go a long way in having a healthy weight and avoiding the health problems arising from being overweight.

To avoid being overweight or to shed off the extra pounds, a person should avoid high-calorie foods, or consume them in moderation and partake in regular physical activity. Trying to gain weight can be more difficult than losing weight. In gaining weight, one must not focus on consuming junk foods or snacks as this can clog the arteries and lead to heart diseases. Calories and fats must be obtained from healthy foods.

Failure to have enough sleep can have a negative impact on a person’s life, for instance, people who sleep less than seven hours a day are more exposed to catarrhal diseases than those who sleep for at least eight hours. The need for sleep varies among different persons, therefore, one should determine his/her own sleep requirements, and strive to have adequate sleep every day. As a caution, alcohol, or any other drug, should not be used to induce sleep as this would only lead to a pass out, not sleep.

Lifestyle choices such as avoiding cigarettes, avoiding excess calories from alcohol, sugar and fats, reducing the intake of high-fat foods, and partaking in physical activities should be emphasized on a day-to-day basis. Although alcohol has been found to be important to the body, it should be taken in moderation as it exposes the body to harmful compounds (cigarettes have the same effect).

All of us aspire to be healthy and engage in different activities to achieve this objective, however, there is no single way of ensuring that we are healthy for the rest our life. A healthy life is a cumulative product of various activities as outlined above, and discarding certain choices. The activities outlined must be observed on a day-to-day basis, and this does not have to mean making drastic changes, it is the simple, small changes that lead to a healthy life. In fact, drastic changes can lead to failure, or other side effects.

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IvyPanda. (2018, October 12). How to be Healthy. https://ivypanda.com/essays/how-to-be-healthy/

"How to be Healthy." IvyPanda , 12 Oct. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/how-to-be-healthy/.

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IvyPanda . 2018. "How to be Healthy." October 12, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/how-to-be-healthy/.

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Essays About Health: Top 5 Examples and 7 Prompts

Almost everyone would agree that health is the most important thing in life. Check out our guide on writing essays about health.

The concept of health is simple. It is the condition where you are well and free from disease or illness. When we are healthy, we are happier, more productive, and able to live a full life. There are many types of health, each helping us to survive and excel in different areas of our life, including physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional health.

In the same ways, there are different ways to stay healthy, such as exercise, socialization, and self-care. These areas of health may not all be equally important, but each of them plays a vital role in making us the best versions of ourselves we can be. You might also find our medical words list helpful.

5 Top Essay Examples

1. essay on how to keep healthy by diwakar sharma, 2. what it’s like living with depression: a personal essay by nadine dirks, 3. the advantages of eating healthy food by lindsay boyers.

• 4.  A Helping Hand: An Essay On The Importance Of Mental Health Parity by Sydney Waltner

5. ​​Stop Trying to be Happy: Improving Your Emotional Health by Jacquelynn Lyon

7 prompts for essays about health, 1. what is the most important type of health, 2. do television and video games negatively impact mental , 3. freedom and public health, 4. how can you live a healthier life, 5. what causes depression, 6. mental health and eating disorders, 7. is “spiritual health” really necessary.

“I think there is no use in earning money in such a way that denies our health. Money is not important than health as it cannot return health and fitness back once we are ill. Thus health is always preferred over money as good health keeps us happy and free from various health issues. If we are healthy we can earn whole life but can’t earn if the health gets deteriorated.”

Sharma discusses the importance of health and ways to stay healthy, including eating nutritious food, drinking water, keeping a good sleep schedule, and exercising. In addition, he notes that it is essential to prioritize your health; do not work too hard or chase money to the extent that it affects your health negatively. You can also check out these articles about cancer .

“I was pleasantly surprised when—after around three weeks—I started feeling results. My intense feeling of overwhelming sadness and hopelessness slowly started to lift and the fears I had about not feeling like myself dissipated. I had worried I would feel less like myself on fluoxetine, but instead for the first time, in a long time—I felt more like myself and able to function throughout the day. Receiving treatment and building healthy coping mechanisms has allowed me to continue to function, even when a depressive episode hits.”

Depression is one of the first things people think of concerning mental health. In her essay, Dirks reflects on her experiences with depression, recalling her feelings of hopelessness and sadness, putting her in a dull, lethargic mood. However, she got help by going to a doctor and starting medication and therapy. Dirks also lists down a few symptoms of depression, warning readers to get help if they are experiencing a number of them.

“A healthful diet is just as good for your brain as the rest of your body. Unhealthy foods are linked to a range of neurological problems. Certain nutrient deficiencies increasing the risk of depression. Other nutrients, like potassium, actually involved in brain cell function. A varied, healthful diet keeps your brain functioning properly, and it can promote good mental health as well.”

Boyers discusses some benefits of healthy eating, such as weight control, reduced risk of diabetes and cancer, and better brain function- an unhealthy diet is linked to neurological problems. She gives readers tips on what they should and should not eat in huge quantities, saying to avoid sugary foods and drinks while eating lean meat, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. You might also be interested in these essays about nursing and essays about obesity .

4.   A Helping Hand: An Essay On The Importance Of Mental Health Parity by Sydney Waltner

“For three years I was one of those people hiding my illness. I was quietly suffering from depression and an eating disorder. My whole day revolved around my eating disorder and hiding it from everyone. This caused a lot of sadness, anger, and loneliness. I not only hid it from others, but I also tried to hide it from myself. I tried to convince myself that nothing was wrong because I did not fully understand what was happening.  I did not know what was making me hurt myself and why I could not stop.”

Waltner writes her essay about the importance of mental health and how it can also affect one’s physical health. She recalls her experiences with hiding her depression and eating disorder; they led to her immense suffering, but her parents discovered her illness before it was too late. She is grateful for how her life is now and encourages others to break the stigma around mental health issues and speak up if something is wrong with them. 

“Beautiful people, smart people, funny people, leaders, lawyers, engineers, professional clowns, everyone you’ve ever looked up to — they have suffered in their lives, and probably will continue to suffer at some point.”

The obsession with making yourself happy will forever have you either not valuing the present or will lead to despair when you do find it — and it’s still not enough. This cycle of self-abuse, dissatisfaction, and emotional isolation can paralyze us, hinder our actions, and mar our self-perception.

Lyon reflects on something she discovered in her first year of college: that it’s fine if you’re not always happy. She says that society’s pressure for everyone to be positive and happy 100% of the time is detrimental to many people’s emotional and mental health. As a result, she gives readers tips on being happy in a “healthier” way: happiness should not be forced, and you should not constantly compare yourself to others. 

There are many types of health, each playing an essential role in helping us live well. If you were to pick one, which do you believe is the most important? You can choose mental well-being, physical well-being, or spiritual well-being. Use your personal experiences in defending your choice; be sure to support your stance with sufficient details. 

For a strong argumentative essay, write about the correlation between “screen time” or video games and television with mental health. Are they that bad for people’s mental health? Perhaps they are good for the mental health of some people. Research this topic and support your response with credible sources- there is no wrong answer as long as it is well-defended. For an interesting piece, conduct interviews to gather information.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many argue that some freedoms must be given up for the greater good. These include mask mandates, vaccine mandates, and stay-at-home orders. Write about whether or not public health should be prioritized over “individual liberty” and why. If so, to what extent? Answer this question in your own words for a compelling argument.

Like many of our cited essay examples above, you can write your essay on how to stay healthy. Give your readers some mental, physical, or social guidelines for being healthier, and explain why they are important. You can even do a more well-rounded guide; give a few tips for each type of health if you wish. 

As stated previously, a prevalent health issue is depression, which can stem from various factors. Look into the different causes of depression and explain how they lead to depression. In this essay, you can share your research on social factors, economic factors, and health conditions that can make a person more susceptible to depression. As this is a medical-related topic, use credible sources for your research. 

Many believe there is a correlation between mental health and obesity, anorexia, and bulimia—research how mental health issues can cause these issues or vice versa, depending on what you find. In your essay, explain the link between mental health issues and eating disorders and how they can affect each other.

A type of health commonly listed is spiritual health, which many religious people value. Should it be classified as something different? Many believe the components of “spiritual health” already fall under mental, social, emotional, and social health, so there is no need to classify it as something different. Reflect on this issue and discuss your stance. 

For help with this topic, read our guide explaining “what is persuasive writing ?”

If you’re stuck picking an essay topic, check out our guide on how to write essays about depression .

Martin is an avid writer specializing in editing and proofreading. He also enjoys literary analysis and writing about food and travel.

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English Compositions

Short Essay on Health [100, 200, 400 Words] With PDF

In today’s lesson, I will discuss how you can write short essays on Health within different word limits. All the essays will be written here with a simplistic approach for a better understanding of all students. 

Short Essay on Health in 100 Words

Health is an important aspect of one’s life. A person is considered healthy when he or she is free from illness or injury. Health can be categorised as physical health, mental health, emotional health, social health, et cetera. However, all these categories are interrelated.

While low physical activity can impact overall mental health, mental stress can adversely affect heart health and poor emotional health can deteriorate one’s quality of life. Being in good health enables a person to function optimally and live their life happily.

Some of the basic rules for maintaining good health include going to bed and waking up on time, exercising regularly, eating healthily and drinking at least eight glasses of water daily. 

Short Essay on Health in 200 Words

Health is one of the most important aspects of one’s life. One can be a billionaire but if he is not in good health, he can not enjoy the luxuries that money can buy. Thus, health is considered as the real wealth. Health can be categorised as physical health, mental health, emotional health, social health, et cetera.

However, all these categories are interrelated and impact each other. For example, not exercising regularly can make a person irritable and cause mental health problems, while chronic stress can lead to health diseases and diabetes. Poor emotional and psychological health can also make people withdrawn and impact their overall health. 

Being in good health enables a person to function optimally and live their life happily. When one feels healthy and is not troubled by pain or discomfort in the body, he can be more active, participate in various activities and be more present in the daily happenings. Being mentally in good health is also very important as suffering from anxiety, depression and other issues can severely deteriorate one’s quality of life.

One can easily improve his health by making some changes in his lifestyle. Some of the basic rules for maintaining good health include going to bed and waking up on time, exercising regularly, eating healthily and drinking a lot of water. 

Short Essay on Health in 400 Words

Health is a key aspect of one’s life. A person is considered healthy when he is free from all illness and injury and can conduct his life well. One can be a billionaire but if he is not in good health, he can not enjoy the luxuries that money can buy. Thus, health is considered as the real wealth and being in good health is very important. Health can be categorised as physical health, mental health, emotional health, social health, et cetera.

Everyone can be healthy but good health does not come without the necessary discipline and care. Going to bed and waking up on time, exercising regularly, avoiding junk food, eating healthily, drinking a lot of water and getting some sunlight are a few good habits that can improve one’s health. However, it cannot be achieved in a day. One needs to change their lifestyle and practice healthy habits daily. 

Sometimes, one’s external environment can also be the reason for their poor health. Living in shabby conditions, breathing in heavily polluted air, consuming unhygienic food and contaminated water can more often than not, result in bacterial, fungal and viral diseases. Hence, cleanliness is an important factor if one wants to be healthy. One should also take care of their diet and include greens and other nutritious food, limit their caffeine intake, stop smoking and drinking as well as follow the basic health protocols. 

Good health is necessary if one wants to achieve their goal in life. One cannot study well or work hard when they are not feeling at ease or are suffering from pain. Adopting a healthy lifestyle makes us healthy and boosts our energy as well as immunity. Thus, good health is the key to enjoying a good life. 

In this session above, I have mentioned everything that could be necessary to write short essays on Health. Through the simple words and sentences, I hope now you have understood the entire context. If you still have any doubts regarding this session, kindly let me know through some quick comments. If you want to read more such essays on various important topics, keep browsing our website. 

Join our Telegram channel to get the latest updates on our upcoming sessions. Thank you. 

English that goes straight to the heart

Essay on Health

It is said that “A healthy man is a wealthy one”. Regular exercise helps us to keep fit and simultaneously keep an alarm in mind.

Good and sound well-being would guarantee an agile and active mind. Regular exercise helps us to keep fit and simultaneously keep an alarm in mind. In this post, you will find a brilliant essay on Health.

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Essay on Health (750+ Words)

Humans are considered intelligent creatures because of their superior brain, which has allowed them to dominate nature. However, to maintain good health, both the body and mind must remain fit. Regular exercise not only helps in physical fitness but also helps in mental alertness. Mental and emotional health are reflected in physical health, and vice versa. If the body is weak, it will negatively affect mental health.

Modern life’s increased stress levels have led to several health problems, including heart and neurological problems. Good health is essential to maintain a positive outlook on life and work.

Life is meant to be enjoyed and cherished, and to do so, one needs to be energetic and enthusiastic. This is only possible when the body is healthy enough to face life’s challenges.

Maintaining good health for children begins during infancy, depending on the mother’s health and nutrition during pregnancy and the cleanliness of the surroundings. Preventing diseases such as polio, diphtheria, and typhoid is crucial for children’s health.

Parents hold the responsibility of ensuring their children’s physical and mental growth, as they are the future of the country. However, others also share this responsibility as children need support from their community. Teachers, neighbours, athletes, social workers, doctors, and other individuals can all play a vital role in promoting good health for children.

A healthy child grows into a healthy adult, and their growth and development from childhood shape their future contributions to society. Therefore, it is essential to provide children with proper guidance and support from different sources to maintain good health.

In modern times, good health is crucial for success due to the fast-paced and stressful lifestyle. Education plays an essential role in a child’s development, but physical and mental health should also be given equal importance.

Students face pressure to perform well in academics and cope with increasing competition, which can negatively impact their health. Educational institutions must provide opportunities for physical exercise and entertainment to promote good health among students.

A school that offers facilities for sports and other physical activities is highly valued, as it helps students to refresh their minds and overcome mental weaknesses. Good education and sound health are crucial for achieving success in any profession, as they enable individuals to face challenges confidently.

Both physical and mental health are essential for better performance and results, and everyone must prioritize their health to succeed in life.

A person who lacks talent can still excel in their job through good health. Many people with good physical health work on farms all day to earn a living for themselves and their families, which gives them mental satisfaction and a good night’s sleep. A physically strong and mentally sharp person can also provide better service to society and receive appreciation from others.

Health is a key requirement for many professions, such as the armed forces, paramilitary, police, and other similar fields. We have seen many decorated personnel in these fields who have demonstrated extraordinary performance and heroism under challenging conditions.

A healthy person has many job options, even in the private sector where professional skills are the main criterion, a physically fit person with a powerful appearance is preferred. Health is valuable everywhere and pays off throughout one’s life.

Negative thoughts and mental illness reflect on a person’s face, while positive thoughts from a healthy mind bring a glow to a person’s face. Since the mind and body are closely intertwined, they can influence each other and set off a cycle of reactions if not controlled.

There is a need to improve healthcare as good health is valuable. Many rural areas lack healthcare centers, which results in people suffering due to the absence of doctors and medicines. Some people have multiple diseases or injuries but are not receiving treatment due to the lack of proper medical facilities. The poor cannot afford treatment in big cities or private hospitals for major diseases.

Improving healthcare facilities alone will not solve the issue. People need to be aware of the importance of regular physical exercise to maintain good health and work efficiency. Joining Gymnasiums and Yoga camps can help people become more cautious and aware of their health. Those who follow these healthy frameworks will inspire others to do the same and become disease-free, enjoying robust health.

If a person can eliminate negative thoughts like self-indulgence, they can develop the will to improve their body and mind. This can free them from most psychological illnesses. As they embark on the path to good health, they will also develop a superior mind.

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Essay on Healthy Lifestyle for Students in English [Easy Words]

January 16, 2021 by Sandeep

Essay on Healthy Lifestyle: A healthy lifestyle includes nutritious diet intake, proper exercise regimen, sound sleep regularly, positive thinking and leading a stress-free life. All these essential elements help us to become healthy, strong and lead a disease free life. Yoga, meditation and sports help us build good immunity from within and contribute to good living. Staying away from drinking alcohol, taking drugs and avoiding junk food can improve both physical and mental health.

Essay on Healthy Lifestyle 500 Words in English

Below we have provided Healthy Lifestyle Essay in English, suitable for class 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10.

Life means existence, but not mere existence but having a purpose. Simply living a life without a goal leads to delusion and unhappiness. Therefore setting an objective to live life healthily is today’s urge and need. What is a healthy lifestyle? It is a way of living rather than considering it a mundane regime or a routine. A balanced and nutritious diet helps in achieving it. A change in eating habits alone won’t suffice, but mental health is also essential to living healthily.

Our body needs a combination of physical and psychological fitness to stay active and fit. All sorts of diseases and sickness get weed out. The seeds of healthy eating and exercising should be sown from a young age when children start understanding. Ultimately its roots get stronger as time passes by providing an enriching life. They eat sensibly and always weigh the pros and cons while consuming junk food like noodles, burgers, snacks, savouries etc.

WHO (World Health Organization) is a specialised agency of the United Nations for international public health located in Geneva, Switzerland. It aims to improve people’s health by eradicating innumerable diseases and promoting the benefits of a healthy lifestyle by conducting various campaigns.

Ways of Achieving a Healthy Lifestyle

First, it is required to have a positive attitude towards building an effective immune system that will assist us in the long run. Our body believes in what we say, focus and think. So it is necessary to be positive in any circumstances and speak well about oneself. Research has proven that individuals with a high level of optimism and positivity tend to develop not only a healthy body but mindset too. Planning number of meals in a day is essential to retain the working of internal organs.

Many prefer three meals a day as our ancestors had followed it, but now due to increasing awareness of the nutrition and balanced diet, people favour four or five meals a day. This helps them to enjoy their food and satiate hunger pangs too. These meals do not contain junk or unhealthy food but wholesome items like pulses, protein, healthy fats, fruits, vegetables etc. They help in managing weight and avoid cravings. Several healthy recipes are available online by experts who are simple, tasty and aid in regulating balance.

Also, food should be consumed in small proportions, followed by small bites. Our body comprises of 60% of water; hence drinking water improves our skin health and beauty, flushes out toxins, maintains blood pressure and lubricates joints. It is advised to drink at least five to six litres of water daily by doctors.

Exercising daily is a must. It can include yoga , jogging, running, weights and high-intensity workouts. This is utmost important as it has holistic benefits for our body. It reduces heart diseases, wards off stress, keeps calm, lifts mood and augments confidence. Apart from these, the primary motive of exercise is cutting and controlling weight.

Yoga, on the other hand, helps to build a correct posture. It fosters flexibility and mobility. Yoga helps in healing and self-care. Nowadays, it has become a separate subject in schools for children so that they understand its value and vital benefits. In various studies, it is found that children who practise yoga daily show growth in academic and extracurricular activities. They love going to schools, and their IQ and EQ develops better.

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Healthy Food Essay 150 and 300 Words in English for Students

• Updated on  
• Apr 4, 2024

Eating healthy food is important for a healthy and disease-free life. A person who eats healthy food means he/ she is taking good care of his/ her body and overall well-being. From childhood, we are told to eat healthy food, which includes green vegetables, fruits, dry fruits, dairy products, etc. On this page, we will be discussing healthy food essay 150 and 300 words for school students.

Table of Contents

• 1 Healthy Food Essay 150 Words
• 2 Essay on Healthy Food in 300 Words
• 3 10 Healthy Food Essay Lines

  Quick Read: Essay on Good Habits

Healthy Food Essay 150 Words

‘Healthy food means food that is good for our physical growth and overall well-being. From an early age, we are told to eat healthy foods, ones that are rich in protein, fiber, and calcium. There are five types of healthy foods: Fruit and vegetables; starchy food; dairy products; proteins and fats.

Food is essential for growth and development, and when we talk about healthy food, it means better growth and a healthy lifestyle. Taking care of our bodies is our responsibility, and it all starts with eating healthy food. 

Today, India is the largest producer of milk and pulses, and the second largest producer of rice, wheat, sugarcane, groundnut, vegetables, and fruit. The country not only sustains its 1.4 billion population with healthy food but also exports a large amount of it. 

Our health is our responsibility, which can only be achieved by eating healthy food and exercising. There is a saying in sports, ‘ Your performance is determined by the type of fuel you provide to your body.’ So, let’s all live a healthy and happy life with healthy food.’

Quick Read: 200+ English Essay Topics

Essay on Healthy Food in 300 Words

‘Food is a source of energy for every living being. Even plants require food in the form of sunlight, water, and minerals from the soil. As humans, we all want to eat our favorite and most delicious food, which is mostly unhealthy. Healthy food, on the other hand, is not preferred by all, as some people don’t consider it tasty. Healthy food is known for its rich fiber and protein content. There are several benefits of eating healthy food, which are very important for our growth, body functioning and to live a sustained life.’

‘A healthy diet is generally a balanced diet of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals and vitamins. Proteins and fats are required for energy, carbohydrates support our bodily functions and physical activity, and vitamins and minerals help boost the immune system, and support normal growth and development.’

‘India is one of the largest producers of healthy foods. In India, the Northern Plains, the Central Highlands, and the coastal areas are known for their rich production of healthy and nutritious food. Uttar Pradesh is the leading producer of sugarcane and wheat, West Bengal of rice, Karnataka for coffee, and Rajasthan of millet. We are surrounded by so many natural and healthy food resources, which can help lead a healthy and sustained life.’

‘Healthy food helps maintain a good body weight. It’s all about balancing what we eat and drink with the energy we burn. Sure, filling our plates with good food is important, but watching how much we take helps too.’

‘Eating healthy food is not just advice to live a healthy life. It’s a way of life that we all must adhere to. Adding fruits, vegetables, and dairy products to our diets will help us maintain good body weight, boost our immune system, and enhance our cells and body functioning.’

10 Healthy Food Essay Lines

Here are 10 healthy food essay lines for students: 

• Eating healthy food is very important for a healthy and happy life.
• We get all the important nutrients and minerals from healthy food.
• Vegetables, fruits, dairy products, and dry fruits are part of healthy food.
• Dairy products such as milk, eggs, ghee, butter, and cotton cheese are rich sources of protein.
• Healthy food keeps our mind and body fit.
• Avoiding junk food and switching to healthy food can help us live a healthier life.
• World Health Day is celebrated on April 7 every year to promote a healthy lifestyle and healthy food.
• Healthy food makes us agile and increases body functioning.
• Healthy food can help boost our immune system and digestion.
• Healthy food can uplift our mood and make us feel good.

Ans: ‘Healthy food means food that is good for our physical growth and overall well-being. From an early age, we are told to eat healthy foods, ones that are rich in protein, fiber, and calcium. There are five types of healthy foods: Fruit and vegetables; starchy food; dairy products; proteins and fats.’ ‘Food is essential for growth and development, and when we talk about healthy food, it means better growth and a healthy lifestyle. Taking care of our body is our responsibility and it all starts with eating healthy food.’

Ans: Food is a source of energy for every living being. Even plants require food in the form of sunlight, water, and minerals from the soil. As humans, we all want to eat our favourite and delicious food, which is mostly unhealthy. Healthy food, on the other hand, is not preferred by all, as some people don’t consider it tasty. Healthy food is known for its rich fiber and protein content. There are several benefits of eating healthy food, which are very important for our growth, body functioning, and living a sustained life.

Ans: ‘Healthy food helps in maintaining a good body weight It’s all about balancing what we eat and drink with the energy we burn. Sure, filling our plates with good food is important, but watching how much we take helps too. Healthy food makes us agile and increases body functioning. Healthy food can help boost our immune system and digestion. Healthy food can uplift our mood and make us feel good.

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Shiva Tyagi

With an experience of over a year, I've developed a passion for writing blogs on wide range of topics. I am mostly inspired from topics related to social and environmental fields, where you come up with a positive outcome.

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Free English Lessons

Talk about health and lifestyle – video.

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In this lesson, you can learn to talk about health and lifestyle in English.

Are you in good shape do you have a balanced diet is your work-life balance healthy you’ll learn how to discuss these health and lifestyle topics and other questions in this class., quiz: talk about health and lifestyle.

Test your understanding of the vocabulary and ideas you saw in this lesson! The quiz has 20 questions, and you’ll see your score at the end.

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1 . Question

Create three health-related collocations by matching the sort elements with the words on the left.

Sort elements

2 . question.

I used to be quite fit, but I’ve got really out of ________ since having children.

Choose the correct word.

3 . Question

Everything’s bad for you if you have too much of it – even water! – so you should eat and drink things in ________.

• modification
• modernisation

4 . Question

I used to be a ________ drinker when I was younger, but I haven’t drunk any alcohol for ten years now.

5 . Question

________ weight

Which verb is not possible?

6 . Question

Match the sentences with the meanings.

• I want to do less work.
• I’m not complaining about the amount of work.
• I want to do more work.

7 . Question

I never get all my work finished in office hours, so I often take it ________ with me.

8 . Question

You shouldn’t work all the hours in the day, because eventually you’ll burn ________ from all the stress.

9 . Question

I have never been able to ________ to a diet.

Choose the correct verb.

10 . Question

When you’re freelance, you can work when you want, but to be healthy, you should try to have a fixed ________.

11 . Question

Create the health-related collocations from the dialogues that you saw during the lesson.

• really badly

12 . Question

Write the missing word to create a health collocation.

Some countries encourage their citizens to get their ‘five a ’, though others recommend eating even more fruit and vegetables.

Write a three-letter word, which is a period of time.

13 . Question

Write the missing word to create a phrasal verb meaning ‘avoid’.

I find it really hard to stay junk food, because it’s so tasty!

Write one three-letter word.

14 . Question

Complete the missing word for someone who is unfit. The first letter is given for you, so you don’t need to write it.

I tried to run 1k yesterday, but I had to stop after 30 seconds because I was out of b .

This means that you find it difficult to breathe.

15 . Question

Write the missing word to complete the phrasal verb meaning ‘do physical exercise’.

I go to the gym four times a week, but I also work at home on the other days.

Write a three-letter word.

16 . Question

Complete the two missing words to create an expression that means you like sugary food. The first letter of each word is already given, so you don’t have to write it.

Chocolate and cakes are my downfall because I have such a s t .

17 . Question

Write the missing noun, meaning the thing that you eat, drink or do a lot even though you know you shouldn’t.

Wine is my . I live in a country where it’s really cheap!

Write a four-letter word beginning with V.

18 . Question

Write two words in the gap to create a phrasal verb meaning ‘consume less’.

I’m trying to cut soft drinks. There’s so much sugar in them!

You need to write two words, with four and two letters.

19 . Question

Write the missing noun, meaning that you have a strong desire to do something.

I gave up smoking five years ago, but I still get .

Write a plural noun with eight letters, starting with C.

20 . Question

Write the missing adjective, meaning that someone is often sitting down.

Many office workers these days have lifestyles.

The word has nine letters and starts with S.

1. Talking About Exercise and Activity

Stephanie: What’s in this box? It’s so heavy!

Daniel: I ordered some kettlebells.

S: Kettlebells? What for?

D: I’ve decided to start working out.

S: You? I never imagined you being a fitness enthusiast.

D: I’m not, but I realised the other day that I’m incredibly out of shape. I was running to catch the bus, and I was so out of breath. I didn’t even run that far! I think my lifestyle has got more and more sedentary, plus I’m getting a bit flabby.

S: Well, good for you! So, what’s your workout routine going to be?

D: I’m not sure. I want to do a little bit of weight training, and maybe some running, and just get a bit fitter generally. It’s difficult at the moment, though. I tried to run 1k yesterday, and I just couldn’t.

S: Don’t give up! Doing anything is better than doing nothing. If you keep trying, it’ll get easier.

D: You think?

S: Sure. When I started running, it was really difficult, but after a month, I could do 5k. Not fast, but still, I could do it.

D: Oh? 5k? That seems impossible right now. I guess it’s something to aim for, though.

S: Go for it!

In the dialogue, you heard some words relating to fitness and exercise .

We have a challenge for you. Look at definitions of three words.

• Do physical training (verb)
• Describes a lifestyle without much physical activity (adj.)
• Describes a person who is unfit (adj. phrase)

Can you remember the words and phrases which match these definitions? If you want, you can go back and review the dialogue, and try to find them.

Here are the answers.

• Do physical training (verb) = work out
• Describes a lifestyle without much physical activity (adj.) = sedentary
• Describes a person who is unfit (adj. phrase) = out of shape

‘Work out’ can include many different types of exercise, but it’s mostly used for focused training, for example using weights or doing aerobics. Generally, when you use the verb ‘work out’, you mean that you follow a routine of different exercises.

Nowadays, many of us have sedentary lifestyles. ‘Sedentary’ is in the same word family as the verb ‘sit’. If you’re sedentary, you spend most of your time sitting down.

If someone doesn’t do much exercise, you can describe them as ‘unfit’, ‘out of shape’ or ‘in bad shape’. Be careful: you can use these to describe yourself, but they could be rude if you use them to describe someone else.

All these words have direct opposites: unfit, fit; out of shape, in shape; in bad shape, in good shape.

What about you? Do you work out? What do you do? What can you do to avoid being sedentary if you have an office job? What’s the best exercise for someone who’s out of shape? Think about how to answer these questions. Pause the video and try to answer them out loud.

Want more practice? Watch this Oxford Online English lesson on describing people’s appearance in English .

Ready? Let’s look at our next point to help you talk about health and lifestyle in English.

2. Talking About Diet

Daniel: I’m hungry. Shall we order? Pizza?

Stephanie: No, not for me. I’m on a diet.

D: Really? How come?

S: I’ve just been eating really badly lately. I’m not trying to lose weight; I just want to eat more healthily. It’s nothing drastic; I’m just trying to stay off junk food, fried food, get my five a day, and so on.

D: Yeah, I should probably think about that, too. I eat a lot of takeaways and packaged food, and I definitely don’t eat enough fruit and vegetables. I doubt it’s good for me. I can never stick to a diet, though.

S: I know what you mean. I think it’s better to make small changes. That way, you don’t have to think about it too much.

D: True, but I have such a sweet tooth. I find it really hard to resist anything sweet: cakes, chocolate, biscuits… If someone offers something like that to me, I can’t say no.

S: Another tip that someone told me which works well: plan your meals in advance. It works for me, at least.

D: That’s a good idea.

Let’s look at some sentences you heard.

• I’m not trying to —- weight.
• I’m just trying to —- off junk food.
• I’m trying to get my —- a day.
• I can never —– to a diet.
• I have such a —– tooth.

Can you remember or guess the missing words? Think about it for a moment!

Could you do it? Let’s check.

• I’m not trying to lose weight.
• I’m just trying to stay off junk food.
• I’m trying to get my five a day.
• I can never stick to a diet.
• I have such a sweet tooth.

Next, what do these key words and phrases mean?

If you’re overweight, you might try to lose weight. The opposite is ‘put on weight’, meaning to get heavier or fatter. You can also say ‘gain weight’.

‘Stay off’ means something like ‘avoid’. It’s often used to talk about bad habits that you’re trying to give up.

So, you might say ‘I’m trying to stay off sweet food’, or ‘I’m trying to stay off cigarettes’, or ‘I’m trying to stay off Netflix’.

‘Five a day’ refers to eating fruit and vegetables. In many countries, health advice is to eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. It’s often used with the verb ‘get’ , as in ‘I don’t always get my five a day’, meaning that I don’t always eat enough fruit and vegetables.

If you stick to something, you continue doing it. It’s often used to talk about good habits. So, if you stick to a diet or an exercise routine, then you do it regularly and don’t give up.

Finally, if you have a sweet tooth, you… Wait, can you guess? What do you think this means?

It means you like sweet food very much.

There are many other useful words and phrases in the dialogue, so we recommend watching it again and finding vocabulary you could use. Can you use the language from the dialogue to talk about your diet and eating habits? Try it!

Next in talking about health and lifestyle in English…

3. Talking About Bad Habits

Stephanie: Beer?

Daniel: Oh, no thanks. I’m trying to cut down.

S: Really? I didn’t think you were a big drinker.

D: I’m not, but I’m trying to quit smoking. I’ve tried five times, and this time I’m determined to make it stick. I associate smoking with drinking, so I feel like it’s easier not to drink, too.

S: That makes sense. I’ve heard a lot of people say similar things. So, how’s it going?

D: It’s been two weeks, which is pretty good. I still get cravings but they’re not as strong as they were. I feel much better already, though.

S: I guess I’m lucky that I’ve never been tempted by smoking. Coffee is my vice. I’ve tried to cut down, but I could never give it up completely.

D: Well, coffee’s not so bad, in moderation.

S: Yeah… Does six cups a day count as ‘moderation’?

In the dialogue, we were talking about bad habits. Let’s look at some key language which you heard.

• I’m trying to cut down.
• I didn’t think you were a big drinker.
• I still get cravings.
• Coffee is my vice.
• Coffee’s not so bad, in moderation.

Imagine you want to explain these words to someone who doesn’t know them. Could you do it? What would you say? Pause the video and try it now. Explain these words in English, and give examples.

Could you do it? Let’s check together.

‘Cut down’ means to do something less than before. For example, if you cut down on sugar, then you try to eat less. It doesn’t mean you give it up completely.

‘A big drinker’ means someone who drinks a lot of alcohol. You can use ‘big’ in this way with other things, too. For example: ‘a big smoker’ or ‘a big eater’.

A ‘craving’ is a very strong desire for something. It’s often used to talk about addictions. For example, if you smoke, and then you stop, you’ll probably feel cravings – a strong urge to smoke.

A ‘ vice ’ is a bad habit. If you say ‘coffee is my vice’, you mean that you probably drink too much coffee. ‘Vice’ literally means something immoral, so it has a strong meaning, but it’s often used ironically or in a slightly joking way.

Finally, when you use ‘in moderation’ to talk about health and lifestyle, you don’t do something too much. For example, if you drink coffee in moderation, maybe you drink one or two cups a day.

Could you use this language to talk about your life? Do you have any bad habits? Are you trying to cut down on anything at the moment? Pause the video and try to make two or three sentences – or more if you can! – and say them out loud.

When you’re making an answer like this, don’t forget to repeat it several times, until you can speak fluently .

OK? Let’s look at one more topic.

4. Talking About Work-Life Balance

Daniel: You seem a bit down. Everything OK?

Stephanie: Urgh… I have too much work!

D: You always say that.

S: Yes, but I’m really under a lot of pressure right now. I feel stressed all the time, and I have no time for myself.

D: That doesn’t sound healthy. You can’t just work all day every day. You’ll burn out eventually.

S: I know, but what can I do? Every week there are deadlines, calls, meetings, problems… It never stops.

D: I don’t know, but I think work-life balance is really important. Since I moved companies two years ago, I make a lot less money, but I’m much happier. I don’t regret it. You only get one life; you can’t spend it all in the office.

S: You think I need to change jobs?

D: I don’t know, but I think you need to have time and energy for your personal life. Otherwise, it’s difficult to feel good about life.

Let’s start with an important point which English learners often make mistakes with; look at one of the first phrases from the dialogue.

• I have too much work!

Now, look at another sentence.

• I have a lot of work!

What’s the difference?

‘A lot’ is just a fact. If you have a lot of work, you have a large quantity of work. Pretty simple.

‘Too much’ is different, because it also expresses an opinion. If you have too much work, then you have a lot of work, *and* you aren’t happy about it. Maybe it’s making you stressed, or you don’t have time for anything else…

This is true generally. Whenever you use the word ‘too’, you’re expressing a negative opinion about something. Remember this; although it might seem like a small difference, it’s important.

So, let’s think about some questions.

• Do you have a good work-life balance?
• What happens if you work too hard?
• What can you do to make your work-life balance healthier?

Think about how you could answer these. Pause the video if you need some time to think.

Of course, there are many possible answers, but let’s see one example for each.

Do you have a good work-life balance? Yes, pretty good in general. I work hard, but I make sure I stop at six o’clock at the latest, and I don’t take work home with me or work at the weekends.

If you work too hard, you’ll feel stressed and miserable, and you won’t have time or energy for other important parts of your life.

I think it’s good to have a fixed routine, so you start and finish, and take breaks, at the same time every day. Also, it’s important to say ‘no’ to other people sometimes, so that you don’t have too much to do.

What about you? Were your answers similar? If you want, you can share your answers to these questions in the comments.

Get more practice with our lesson on taking about routines in English .

That’s the end. We hope you got some helpful phrases you can use to talk about health and lifestyle in English! Thanks for watching!

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Essay on Healthy Lifestyle in English for Children and Students

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Essay on Healthy Lifestyle in English: A healthy lifestyle is the foundation of a good life. While it does not take much to achieve this lifestyle many people these days are unable to follow it owing to several reasons such as professional commitments, lack of determination and personal issues. It takes a good amount of determination to lead a healthy lifestyle these days. With so many tasks to accomplish during the day, our health often takes a backseat. It is important to realize the need to follow a healthy lifestyle and understand the ways in which it can be achieved.

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Long and Short Essay on Healthy Lifestyle in English

Here are some short and long essays on Healthy Lifestyle of varying lengths to help you with the topic in your exams and school/college assignments. You can select any Healthy Lifestyle essay as per your need and interest:

Healthy Lifestyle Essay – 1 (200 words)

The term ‘healthy lifestyle’ is heard almost everywhere these days – on the television, on social media platforms as well as in magazines. The need to follow a healthy lifestyle is stressed upon via these mediums but people still ignore it and continue with their not-so-healthy lifestyle and eventually bear its consequences.

A healthy lifestyle mainly includes following healthy eating habits, taking adequate sleep and squeezing in some time for physical exercise each day. However, most people get so caught up with their daily grinds that they neglect their health. Ignoring your health is the worst thing you can do to yourself. Many people realize this only after they develop some health issues.

It is time people should understand that our health is of utmost importance and it is only when we are healthy would we be able to work efficiently on other aspects of our lives. Developing healthy habits requires just a few changes in the daily routine. These changes eventually become a habit and before you know you are on your way to a healthy lifestyle.

It is better to take out some time to follow the healthy habits shared above when you are still young and fit to avoid health issues later in life.

Healthy Lifestyle Essay – 2 (300 words)

Introduction.

Ours is the generation of the computer, mobile, burgers, pizzas and late night parties– basically everything that is unhealthy. Everyone is caught up between professional commitments and personal issues and what they are losing on amidst all this chaos is their health. People these days have become so involved in their daily grinds that they have forgotten what it is to live a wholesome and healthy life.

Importance of Healthy Lifestyle

Our elders often stress upon the need for having a nutritious diet, sleeping and waking up on time each day and going to nearby places by foot rather than using vehicles each time. However, most of us ignore their advice and continue with our unhealthy way of living. What they suggest is absolutely right. It is important to follow a healthy lifestyle. The need to switch to healthy habits is being stressed upon everywhere these days. Here is why it is important to follow a healthy lifestyle:

• It makes you more organized and increases productivity.
• Mkes you physically fit and keeps several health issues at bay.
• It is a great way to live stress free.
• Renders a positive outlook.
• It brings us closer to our family and loved ones.

Indulging in unhealthy habits such as smoking, drinking, having junk food, spending too much time on screen can lead to various serious illnesses and should thus be avoided.

“Health is Wealth”. It is indeed but seems like our generation has forgotten it. It is time to slow down and take a look at the way you are living and treating your body. You may make more money, win friends and afford the luxuries of life with the lifestyle you are following but you are shortening your life span. Take charge of your life and switch to healthy habits while there is still time.

Healthy Lifestyle Essay – 3 (400 words)

Healthy lifestyle implies following good habits such as having a healthy diet, taking out time to indulge in physical exercise regularly and taking adequate sleep at night. It is essential to follow a healthy lifestyle to keep various illnesses at bay and live wholly.

How to Quit Unhealthy Habits?

While most of us are aware of the unhealthy habits we indulge in and many even try to quit the same, we often fall short. You cannot just wake up one day and decide to quit your unhealthy habits and voila you are done with it. No, it requires a lot of effort to quit such habits especially if you have been following them since long. Here are a few things that should help:

The first thing you should do is to write down the cons of the bad habits you have been indulging in and the positive effects you can bring about in your life if you quit the same. Stick it at a place where you can read it often enough. This should work as an inspiration.

Company Effects

Company affects our habits to a large extent. If you have been socializing with people who indulge in drinking and smoking then it would be hard for you to quit these habit. It is time to limit your contact with such people.

Avoid Triggers

There may be a number of things that might act as triggers. For instance, if you smoke more when you are drinking then cut out on your drinks. If you have the habit of having chips and cookies when you are watching TV then cut out on the time you watch TV.

Look for a Substitute

Boredom and stress are some of the common reasons people take to unhealthy habits such as smoking, drinking, spending large amount of time on mobile or TV screens. Instead of indulging in such activities you must make an effort to channelize your energy in the right direction. For instance, you may follow something that interests you during your free time. It can be anything from playing with your dog to dancing to sketching.

Seek Professional Help

If the above mentioned doesn’t help especially when it comes to getting rid of the addictions you have developed then it is time to seek professional help.

You must not take your health lightly. It is time to switch to a healthy lifestyle if you haven’t already to keep health issues at bay.

Healthy Lifestyle Essay – 4 (500 words)

Healthy lifestyle is the need of the hour. While it came easy to the earlier generations these days people find it hard to follow owing to the fast paced life. People are working hard, partying harder and doing everything apart from taking care of their health. It is time we must take our health seriously. A few healthy habits can help you develop a healthy lifestyle over a period of time.

Healthy Habits That Must be Followed

Follow a healthy diet plan.

Following a healthy diet plan is of utmost importance when you are trying to live a healthy life. Begin by following a healthy diet plan that includes all the essential micronutrients and steer clear from junk food.

Wake Up Early

Most people are unable to indulge in exercise, have breakfast and spend few quality moments with their loved ones in the morning because they do not wake up on time. Make it a habit to wake up early each morning so that you have enough time to accommodate all these tasks.

Squeeze in at least half an hour each day to indulge in physical exercise of your choice. You can choose to go for a walk, swim, practice yoga, deep breathing or do anything that interests you. This helps in de-stressing.

Sleep On Time

Since you have to wake up early, it is essential to sleep on time. You must ensure that you take at least 7-8 hours of sleep every day.

Put Your Mobile Aside

You should make it a habit to keep your phone aside while you are working to enhance productivity. Also keep your phone at a distance when you are at home and spend quality time with your family. The rays emitted by mobile phones are harmful it is thus suggested to keep it away especially when you sleep at night.

Connect With Positive Minds

It is always good to be friends with people who bring in positivity in your life and stay away from those who indulge in negative talks. Also socialize with those who follow a healthy lifestyle rather than those who regularly indulge in unhealthy habits such as smoking or drinking.

Have Your Meals on Time

As important as it is to follow a healthy diet plan, it is equally essential to have your meals on time. Make sure you do not skip your breakfast or any other meal of the day and have your meals at the right intervals. It is also suggested to have 5-6 small meals during the day rather than having three large ones.

Follow Your Interest

Most of us are so engrossed in our work these days that we forget to take out time to follow our interests and hobbies. It is a good idea to squeeze in some time to follow your hobbies such as gardening, reading, writing or anything of your choice. These act as a good replacement for the unhealthy habits and also help in keeping stress at bay.

You must make an effort to deliberately inculcate these healthy habits in your daily routine to attain good physical and mental health.

Healthy Lifestyle Essay – 5 (600 words)

It is easy to inculcate bad habits however it takes a good amount of effort to unlearn them and switch to a healthy lifestyle. The importance of healthy lifestyle has been stressed upon often enough however not many take it seriously. Even those who plan to follow it to improve their way of living often fall short as it takes a lot of determination to do so. It is suggested to take one step at a time rather than going overboard with it. This will help you achieve your goal over a period of time. Here is how to develop healthy habits and follow a healthy lifestyle.

Habits That Must Be Avoided

The first step towards a healthy lifestyle is to quit smoking and stop the intake of any tobacco products you may be addicted to. This can obviously not be achieved in a day and would not be easy. It is suggested to seek professional help to quit the same over a period of time.

Drinking occasionally is fine but if you are addicted to it then you must watch out. Excessive drinking can lead to numerous health issues. If you are addicted to it then it is suggested to take professional help and also reach out to your friends and family for support to get rid of this habit.

Ordering out and having junk for most part of the week has become more of a religion these days. It is time to watch out on your intake of junk food and switch to healthy homemade food. This will not only keep you healthy but also in good shape.

Screen Addiction

Most people are glued to their mobile screens these days. This is another unhealthy habit you ought to get rid of right away. Watching too much TV or spending too much time on the laptop is also something you must avoid.

Skipping Meals

Many people these days get so engrossed in their tasks that they tend to skip their meals. Morning hours are usually busy for most and there is a tendency of skipping the breakfast to accommodate other tasks during that time. This is the worst punishment you are giving your body.

Overusing Pills

Many people look for an easy way out to get rid of their mental and physical pain and one sure shot way is to gulp a pill or two. Pain killers work best for such people however it needs to be understood that these only offer a temporary relief and can cause serious side effects.

Time to Follow Healthy Habits

Now that you know the habits that must be avoided you must work towards quitting the same to give way to a healthier lifestyle. Here are a few things you can do in this direction:

• Seek support from family and friends.
• Limit your contact with people who indulge in unhealthy habits such as smoking and drinking.
• Remind yourself about the pros of following a healthy lifestyle.
• Surround yourself with people who are following the kind of lifestyle you want to follow.
• Follow your hobbies and interests during your free time so that you have no time to indulge in unhealthy habits.
• Indulge in physical exercises to promote the growth of endorphins. This is a great way to keep stress and its negative repercussions at bay.

It takes a while to develop a healthy lifestyle especially if you are gripped with unhealthy habits shared above. The task may not be easy but it would definitely be worth it. If you have been planning to set things right it is time to stop procrastinating and start now.

Long Essay on Healthy Lifestyle – Essay 6 (800 Words)

We have grown up hearing the phrase “Health is Wealth”. In this case, health relates to both physical and mental health, which could be achieved by adapting to a healthy lifestyle.

“Healthy Lifestyle” is a way of living adopted in such a way, so as to keep one’s body fit and fine and also away from diseases or ailments. It constitutes set of activities performed routinely by an individual in order to maintain and improve his/her mental or physical health.

Exercising, yoga, healthy eating, jogging are some of the conventional methods to a healthy lifestyle; however, adhering to certain norms while performing other activities may also considerably improve your physical and mental health. For example – sitting in straight posture will keep your backbone intact and healthy, always wearing a smile on your face and quickly forgetting bad experiences will keep you mentally healthy and happy and not drinking water in between meals is good for digestion.

In this essay we will go through various methods adopted for a healthy lifestyle and advantages of a healthy lifestyle.

How to Maintain Healthy Lifestyle?

A healthy lifestyle could be achieved by merely adopting certain rules and regulations while performing your everyday tasks. Some additional activities in your daily routine may also be introduced to improve overall health and well being. Below we will go through some of the important methods to lead a healthy lifestyle-

1) Exercise

Your mental health largely depends on your physical well being, that is – you will be happy and at peace only if your body is fit and healthy. Regular exercise stimulates your health and tunes your vital organs by pumping blood and adrenaline. It also keeps your sugar level maintained, saving you from a lifelong disease of diabetes.

2) Eat Healthy

Our food is the prime source of energy for our body and what we eat directly affects it. If we eat unhealthy food, it’s going to show on our health in form of obesity, indigestion, constipation or other ailments. It is therefore, advisable to take healthy food for a healthy lifestyle. Eat nutritional food, rich in vitamins and antioxidants, like – fruits and vegetables; they not only improve your health but also improve your body’s immunity.

3) Drink Lots of Water

Water has more wonderful effects on your health than you could even imagine. It functions as a cleanser, cleaning toxins from your body. It also keeps your body cells hydrated and improves the functioning of brain and other body parts, apart from making your skin feel always young and fresh. Drinking 2 glasses of lukewarm water, first thing in the morning is a wonderful for the kidneys, also, it is advisable to drink 8 – 12 glasses of water daily.

4) Maintain Mental Health

There are various ways to improve your mental health. Though, exercising and eating healthy will also gives you mental satisfaction by keeping you physically healthy, there are some other habits, which could be adopted to improve mental health. Socializing, laughing and sleeping for recommended hours will keep one mentally healthy. Recommended sleep for children is for 10 to 12 hours in night and for adults is 7 to 9 hours.

Advantages of Healthy Lifestyle

A healthy lifestyle has both long term as well as short term benefits. Short term benefits of exercising include stimulated health, improved immune system, increased organ efficiency and improved brain health. While, short term effects of healthy eating are – raised nutrition level, healthy digestive system and raised immunity along with other advantages.

Apart from having short term advantages, healthy life style also has many long term benefits. It prevents the occurrence of many lifestyle related diseases like, diabetes, blood pressure, obesity, back pain and spondylitis etc. It also prevents us from other serious ailments like cancer, heart diseases and osteoporosis etc.

Those were the physical benefits of adapting to a healthy lifestyle, but there are also psychological benefits of it. A healthy lifestyle will give you a healthy body and hence a healthy mind. With no diseases and a fit body and boosted immune system, you will be a happy person with ample of energy and time for your career and growth. You will be happy as ever and socialize more, admiring others as they admire you. Moreover, a healthy person inspires others to follow the path, ultimately leading to a healthy society.

Now that we know how to live a healthy lifestyle and its numerous advantages; no time should be spared and we must at once begin a new healthy and happy life free from diseases and worries. If you are already following a healthy lifestyle, then you should inspire others to adapt a lifestyle as your and see the changes. You just have to make minimal changes in your daily routine for a healthy lifestyle. For example – you must be eating daily, just have to eat healthy and takeout couple of hours for exercising.

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Healthy Food Essay

The food that we put into our bodies has a direct impact on our overall health and well-being. Eating a diet that is rich in nutritious, whole foods can help us maintain a healthy weight, prevent chronic diseases, and feel our best. It is important to make conscious, healthy food choices to support our physical and mental well-being. By incorporating a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins into our diets, we can ensure that our bodies are getting the nutrients they need to thrive. Here are a few sample essays on healthy food.

100 Words Essay On Healthy Food

Healthy food is essential to maintaining a healthy and balanced lifestyle. First and foremost, healthy food is food that is nutritious and good for the body. This means that it provides the body with the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients it needs to function properly. Healthy food can come in many forms, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats. Healthy food is important for maintaining a healthy body and mind. It provides the nutrients and energy the body needs to function properly and can help to prevent a wide range of health problems. So, if you want to feel your best, be sure to make healthy food a priority in your life.

200 Words Essay On Healthy Food

Healthy food is not just about what you eat – it’s also about how you eat it. For example, eating fresh, whole foods that are prepared at home with love and care is generally considered to be healthier than eating processed, pre-packaged foods that are high in salt, sugar, and unhealthy fats. Additionally, eating in moderation and avoiding excessive portion sizes is key to maintaining a healthy diet.

There are many reasons to eat healthy food, but the most obvious one is that it can help to prevent a wide range of health problems. Eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and other healthy foods can help to lower your risk of heart disease, stroke, obesity, and other chronic conditions. Additionally, healthy food can help to boost your immune system, giving your body the tools it needs to fight off illness and infection. But the benefits of healthy food go beyond just physical health. Eating well can also have a profound impact on your mental and emotional well-being. A healthy diet can help to reduce stress and anxiety, improve mood, and increase energy levels. It can also help to improve cognitive function and memory, making it easier to focus and concentrate.

500 Words Essay On Healthy Food

Healthy food is an essential aspect of a healthy lifestyle. It is not only crucial for maintaining physical health, but it can also have a significant impact on our mental and emotional well-being. Eating a balanced diet that includes a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins can help us feel energised, focused, and happy. But for many people, eating healthy can be a challenge. In a world where fast food and processed snacks are readily available and often more convenient than cooking a meal from scratch, it can be tempting to choose unhealthy options. And with busy schedules and hectic lives, it can be difficult to find the time and energy to plan and prepare healthy meals.

However, the benefits of eating healthy far outweigh the challenges. Not only can it help us maintain a healthy weight and reduce our risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, but it can also improve our mood, energy levels, and overall quality of life.

My Experience

As I sat down at my desk with a bag of chips and a soda for lunch again, I realised that I had been making unhealthy food choices all week. I had been so busy with work and other obligations that I hadn't taken the time to plan and prepare healthy meals. I decided then and there to make a change. I started by making a grocery list of nutritious, whole foods and meal planning for the week ahead. I also made a commitment to myself to cook at home more often instead of relying on takeout or fast food. It wasn't easy at first, but over time, I started to notice a difference in my energy levels and overall mood. I felt better physically and mentally, and I was able to maintain a healthy weight. Making healthy food choices became a priority for me, and I am now reaping the numerous benefits of a nutritious diet.

One of the key components of a healthy diet is variety. Eating a diverse range of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins can provide our bodies with the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals we need to function at our best. It's important to try to incorporate a rainbow of colours into our diets, as each colour group represents different nutrients and health benefits. For example, orange and yellow fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamin C and beta-carotene, which can support healthy skin and eyesight. Green leafy vegetables like spinach and kale are packed with antioxidants and can help support a healthy immune system. And blue and purple fruits and vegetables, like blueberries and eggplants, are high in flavonoids and can help support brain health and cognitive function.

In addition to eating a variety of fruits and vegetables, it's also important to include whole grains in our diets. Whole grains, like quinoa, brown rice, and oatmeal, are a great source of fibre, which can help keep us feeling full and satisfied. They can also help regulate our blood sugar levels, which can keep our energy levels steady and prevent unhealthy cravings.

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Zinc is a trace mineral, meaning that the body only needs small amounts, and yet it is necessary for almost 100 enzymes to carry out vital chemical reactions. It is a major player in the creation of DNA, growth of cells, building proteins, healing damaged tissue, and supporting a healthy immune system . [1] Because it helps cells to grow and multiply, adequate zinc is required during times of rapid growth, such as childhood, adolescence, and pregnancy. Zinc is also involved with the senses of taste and smell.

Recommended Amounts  

RDA:  The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for adults 19+ years is 11 mg a day for men and 8 mg for women. Pregnancy and lactation requires slightly more at 11 mg and 12 mg, respectively.

UL:   The Tolerable Upper Intake Level is the maximum daily intake unlikely to cause harmful effects on health. The UL for zinc is 40 mg daily for all males and females ages 19+ years.

Zinc and Health

Because zinc supports the growth and normal functioning of immune cells, even a mild or moderate deficiency can slow down the activity of lymphocytes, neutrophils, and macrophages that protect the body from viruses and bacteria. Zinc deficiency is a common health problem in children from low and middle-income countries that contributes to stunting of growth, diarrhea, pneumonia, and malaria. [2] The elderly who may have low zinc intakes from a poor appetite due to multiple diseases and medications are at risk for infections, such as pneumonia and skin ulcers, as reviewed in the next section.

Adequate zinc is needed to create new cells, particularly collagen and fiber-like tissues, a necessary function in repairing damaged cells. Zinc also supports immune cell activity that combats inflammation from a wound. Therefore the greatest benefit of zinc appears to be in people who are deficient in the mineral and who have severe wounds such as decubitus ulcers or extensive burns. Because people with these conditions have higher zinc needs and may have poor appetites, supplements or topical creams are used rather than relying on food intake alone. In these cases, zinc is often combined with other nutrients like protein, vitamin C, and L-arginine that also promote wound healing such as in a nutritional shake. [3] However, a benefit of zinc supplementation has not been shown in people with skin ulcers who have normal blood levels of zinc. [4]

Food Sources

Meats, poultry, and seafood are rich in zinc. Some plant foods like legumes and whole grains are also good sources of zinc, but they also contain phytates that can bind to the mineral, lowering its absorption.

• Shellfish: oysters, crab, lobster
• Nuts , seeds
• Whole grains
• Fortified breakfast cereals

Supplements

Zinc is available in supplement form as pills and lozenges. Excess zinc can interfere with the absorption of iron and copper. High doses can also cause nausea and even vomiting. Therefore it is important not to take supplemental zinc unless it is known that the diet is low in foods containing zinc or a zinc deficiency is confirmed. A registered dietitian can help to evaluate one’s diet and determine if zinc intake is low.

What about the use of zinc lozenges for colds?

Zinc is believed to prevent cold viruses from spreading and by reducing inflammation, which may shorten the duration of a cold. Research has shown mixed results of their effectiveness due to differences in the form of zinc, the dosage, and how long it was used. Yet some clinical trials support its effectiveness. A Cochrane review of clinical trials found that zinc lozenges did not prevent colds, but if taken within a day of the onset of cold symptoms (sore throat, sniffles), the lozenges could tame its severity. [5] However, it is noted that some of the trials were funded by pharmaceutical companies who may have had financial interest in or produced zinc lozenges.

Zinc lozenges can carry a few unpleasant side effects like having a metallic flavor and causing nausea, but some people would gladly trade these symptoms for a bout with a nasty cold.

Signs of Deficiency and Toxicity

A zinc deficiency is rare and is seen most commonly in people who do not absorb zinc well due to digestive disorders such as inflammatory bowel diseases or who have undergone gastrointestinal surgery. Those with chronic liver or kidney disease are also at risk. Excessive or prolonged diarrhea can lead to a zinc deficiency, as well as severe conditions with increased zinc needs like burns and sepsis (an infection caused by harmful bacteria entering the blood). Zinc is more efficiently absorbed when taken in smaller doses and in people who are deficient in the mineral.

Other groups at risk for zinc deficiency:

• Pregnant women. Increased zinc needs for the fetus and during lactation.
• Low amounts of zinc in human breast milk. High amounts of calcium and phosphorus in cow’s milk can lower zinc absorption.
• Vegetarians/vegans. Zinc intake is limited to plant foods like whole grains that have lower bioavailability than from animal foods.
• Decreased absorption and increased loss of zinc through the urine.

Signs of deficiency include:

• Loss of taste or smell
• Poor appetite
• Depressed mood
• Decreased immunity
• Delayed wound healing

Toxicity occurs almost exclusively from zinc supplements rather than food. There have been no reports of eating too much zinc from the diet alone. [1]

Signs of toxicity include:

• Nausea, vomiting
• Abdominal pain or cramping

Did You Know?

Zinc oxide was used in ointments to treat wounds, as noted in ancient Greek medical texts. Today, zinc oxide is still a popular over-the-counter treatment skin treatment. It can defend against sunburns by reflecting and scattering ultraviolet rays so they do not penetrate the skin. It is also used to treat inflamed skin conditions like burns, eczema, bedsores, and diaper rash. The compound forms a protective barrier on the skin’s surface, repelling away moisture and allowing the skin to heal. It may also aid enzymes to break down damaged collagen tissue so that new tissue can be formed. No negative side effects have been reported.

Vitamins and Minerals

• Institute of Medicine. Food and Nutrition Board. Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin A, Vitamin K, Arsenic, Boron, Chromium, Copper, Iodine, Iron, Manganese, Molybdenum, Nickel, Silicon, Vanadium, and Zinc: a Report of the Panel on Micronutrients. Washington, DC: National Academy Press; 2001. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK222317/ Accessed 10/17/2019.
• Mayo‐Wilson E, Junior JA, Imdad A, Dean S, Chan XH, Chan ES, Jaswal A, Bhutta ZA. Zinc supplementation for preventing mortality, morbidity, and growth failure in children aged 6 months to 12 years of age. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews . 2014(5).
• Ellinger S, Stehle P. Efficacy of vitamin supplementation in situations with wound healing disorders: results from clinical intervention studies. Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition & Metabolic Care . 2009 Nov 1;12(6):588-95.
• Wilkinson EA. Oral zinc for arterial and venous leg ulcers. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews . 2014(9).
• Singh M, Das RR. Zinc for the common cold. Cochrane Database Syst Rev . 2011 Feb 16;(2):CD001364.

Last reviewed March 2023

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• About Healthy Growth and Weight
• Water and Healthier Drinks
• Healthy Eating for a Healthy Weight
• Steps for Losing Weight
• Tips for Physical Activity and Your Weight
• Tips for Parents and Caregivers
• External Resources
• Be Sugar Smart
• Rethink Your Drink

Tips for Healthy Eating for a Healthy Weight

• An eating plan that helps promote health and manage weight includes a variety of healthy foods.
• Comfort foods, in limited amounts, can be part of healthy eating patterns.

Why it's important

People with healthy eating patterns live longer and are at lower risk for serious health problems such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and obesity. For people with chronic diseases, healthy eating can help manage these conditions and prevent complications.

According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020–2025 , a healthy eating plan:

• Emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products.
• Includes a variety of protein foods. Healthful options include seafood, lean meats and poultry, eggs, legumes (beans and peas), soy products, nuts, and seeds.
• Is low in added sugars , sodium (salt) , saturated fats, trans fats, and cholesterol.
• Stays within your daily calorie needs .

USDA's MyPlate Plan can identify what to eat, how much to eat from the different food groups, and how to stay within your recommended calorie allowance. My Food Diary can help you track meals and snacks.

Keep reading for specific tips for fruit, vegetables, calcium-rich foods, meat, and comfort food.

Fresh, frozen, or canned fruits are great choices. Try fruits beyond apples and bananas, such as mangos, pineapples, or kiwis. When fresh fruit is not in season, try a frozen, canned, or dried variety. Be aware that dried and canned fruit may contain added sugars or syrups. Choose canned varieties of fruit packed in water or in its own juice.

Add variety to grilled or steamed vegetables with an herb such as rosemary. You can also sauté (pan-fry) vegetables in a non-stick pan with a small amount of cooking spray. Or try frozen or canned vegetables for a quick side dish—just microwave and serve. Frozen peppers, broccoli, or onions can give stews and omelets a quick and convenient boost of color and nutrients.

Look for frozen and canned vegetables without added salt, butter, or cream sauces.

Calcium-rich foods

In addition to fat-free and low-fat milk, consider low-fat and fat-free yogurts without added sugars. These come in a variety of flavors and can be a great dessert substitute.

Fortified soy alternatives and canned sardines and salmon are also good sources of calcium . Vitamin D aids in calcium absorption. Sources of vitamin D can include:

• Fortified drinks such as milk and fortified soy beverages.
• Fortified foods such as yogurt or some cereals.
• Some seafoods.

If your favorite recipe calls for frying fish or breading chicken, try healthier variations by baking or grilling. Maybe even try dry beans in place of meats. Ask friends or search the internet and magazines for recipes with fewer calories. You might be surprised to find you have a new favorite dish!

Comfort foods

You can still enjoy your favorite foods, even if they are high in calories, fat, or added sugars. The key is eating them only once in a while.

Some general tips for comfort foods:

Eat them less often. If you normally eat these foods every day, cut back to once a week or once a month.

Eat smaller amounts. If your favorite higher-calorie food is a chocolate bar, have a smaller size or only half a bar.

Try a lower-calorie version . Use lower-calorie ingredients or prepare food differently.

For example, a macaroni and cheese recipe might include whole milk, butter, and full-fat cheese. You can try remaking it with non-fat milk, less butter, low-fat cheese, fresh spinach, and tomatoes. Remember to not increase your portion size.

How to Reduce Sodium

Healthy Eating Tips

Good Nutrition Starts Early

Improving Your Eating Habits

Planning Meals

Cutting Calories

Get Enough Sleep

Food Assistance and Food Systems Resources ‎

Healthy weight and growth.

Eating well and being physically active contribute to healthy growth in childhood and good health throughout life. See how to get started.

• Open access
• Published: 23 May 2024

Integrating the social determinants of health into graduate medical education training: a scoping review

• Nehal Nour 1 ,
• David Onchonga 1 ,
• Siobhan Neville 1 ,
• Patrick O’Donnell 1 &
• Mohamed Elhassan Abdalla 1  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  565 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

The social determinants of health (SDH) play a key role in the health of individuals, communities, and populations. Academic institutions and clinical licensing bodies increasingly recognize the need for healthcare professionals to understand the importance of considering the SDH to engage with patients and manage their care effectively. However, incorporating relevant skills, knowledge, and attitudes relating to the SDH into curricula must be more consistent. This scoping review explores the integration of the SDH into graduate medical education training programs.

A systematic search was performed of PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, ERIC, and Scopus databases for articles published between January 2010 and March 2023. A scoping review methodology was employed, and articles related to training in medical or surgical specialties for registrars and residents were included. Pilot programs, non-SDH-related programs, and studies published in languages other than English were excluded.

The initial search produced 829 articles after removing duplicates. The total number of articles included in the review was 24. Most articles were from developed countries such as the USA (22), one from Canada, and only one from a low- and middle-income country, Kenya. The most highly represented discipline was pediatrics. Five papers explored the inclusion of SDH in internal medicine training, with the remaining articles covering family medicine, obstetrics, gynecology, or a combination of disciplines. Longitudinal programs are the most effective and frequently employed educational method regarding SDH in graduate training. Most programs utilize combined teaching methods and rely on participant surveys to evaluate their curriculum.

Applying standardized educational and evaluation strategies for SDH training programs can pose a challenge due to the diversity of the techniques reported in the literature. Exploring the most effective educational strategy in delivering these concepts and evaluating the downstream impacts on patient care, particularly in surgical and non-clinical specialties and low- and middle-income countries, can be essential in integrating and creating a sustainable healthcare force.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines the social determinants of health (SDH) as “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age, that affect a wide range of health and quality of life outcomes.” These conditions are brought about by the nature in which resources, finances, and power are distributed locally, nationally, and globally and may include economic policies and systems, development agendas, social norms, social policies, and political systems [ 1 ]. SDH can have a significant impact on individual and population health. Studies have demonstrated that marginalized individuals and communities suffering discrimination have noticeably poorer health outcomes [ 2 ]..

There has been a clarion call to integrate SDH concepts for doctors seeking postgraduate training to equip future healthcare professionals with the appropriate competencies to tackle SDH-related factors at the patient and community level [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. A critical understanding of the causes and impacts of SDH by doctors is needed to provide effective healthcare while offering adequate stewardship of limited resources and promoting health equity of the populations they serve [ 6 ]. Orienting medical training towards SDH is a significant step to equip physicians with the understanding, proficiencies, and attitudes needed to begin to address health inequalities [ 7 ].

Medical education regarding the SDH is crucial for future medical practitioners [ 8 ]. Besides potentially enhancing health outcomes for individual patients, physicians tackling these disparities will adopt the initiatives calling for changes to influence population and community health [ 9 , 10 , 11 ]. Thus, understanding social determinants of health requires a perspective shift for graduate learners, with the desired educational outcome being transformative learning [ 12 , 13 ].

Despite a growing understanding of the importance of integrating SDH into health professional curricula, the optimum approach to incorporating SDH teaching into undergraduate and graduate training curricula has yet to be clarified. A comprehensive guide for SDH teaching strategies would promote consistency in graduate training. A previous scoping review explored the inclusion of SDH in undergraduate medical curricula. The study highlighted the benefits of longitudinal curricula with community involvement in developing retainable knowledge and skills regarding SDH for medical students [ 14 ]. In 2019, a scoping review exploring the graduate curriculum interventions focused on SDH objectives concluded the insufficient physician training regarding SDH covers Canada only [ 15 ]..

This scoping review was performed to explore the extent of integration of SDH in graduate medical education curricula globally. The study objective was to explore the structure, content, training strategies, and evaluation methods used in incorporating SDH into training qualified doctors seeking higher medical training.

The scoping review was performed by searching four relevant databases – PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, ERIC, and Scopus. The process was undertaken by standard scoping review methodology, including identifying the research question, identifying relevant studies, selecting studies, charting the data, and collating, summarizing, and reporting the results [ 16 ].

Formulation of the research question

All authors formulated the research question, guided by the WHO’s definition of social determinants of health [ 1 ]. The overall question: What has been published on the topic of the integration of SDH into graduate medical education curricula? Specifically, the research question focused on the content of the SDH teaching in the graduate medical curriculum, their presentation, teaching strategies, and program evaluation. It aimed to identify any gaps in the available literature to guide future research.

Identification of relevant studies, including the data sources and search strategy

Authors searched PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, ERIC, and Scopus in March 2023. Individual search strategies were developed for each database, and searches were run for each database (Table  1 ). The search strategy was comprehensive to capture the diversity of the potential SDH integrated into the graduate medical education curricula. PRISMA-ScR guidelines [ 17 , 18 ] were followed, as illustrated in (Fig.  1 ). The study population consisted of medical professionals (doctors) in any discipline undertaking postgraduate training, including specialty trainees, residents, fellows, and registrars; the concept was the content of the curriculum used for teaching the SDH, with the context being graduate medical schools and training health facilities and institutes globally.

Identifying relevant studies

PRISMA flow diagram for the systematic scoping review of the SDH post-graduate training program

*Consider, if feasible to do so, reporting the number of records identified from each database or register searched (rather than the total number across all databases/registers). **If automation tools were used, indicate how many records were excluded by a human and how many were excluded by automation tools. From: Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, Boutron I, Hoffmann TC, Mulrow CD, et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ 2021;372:n71. doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n71 . For more information, visit: (38)

Two authors (DO, NN) reviewed relevant articles after the initial removal of duplicates by exporting the references to Mendeley Reference Manager [ 19 ]; articles were analyzed using Rayyan [ 20 ], an online software that helps with a blinded screening of articles. Two authors (DO, NN) then independently screened the titles and abstracts without limiting the articles’ publication dates, population, and study locations. The remaining articles underwent full-text screening, and a third author was called to arbitrate where there were differences in screening outcomes.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Articles were deemed eligible for inclusion if they focused on graduate SDH curricula, including fellows, registrars, trainees, and residents. Studies had to contain structural curricula to qualify for inclusion. Articles published in English between January 2012 and March 2023 were included in the current study. If the program did not intend to integrate the SDH in graduate medical education or did not indicate a mechanism for evaluating the curriculum, they were excluded from this review. Also, the following exclusion criteria were applied: undergraduate programs, reports, systematic reviews, pilot programs, unstructured programs, programs not focusing on SDH teaching, programs not in English, internship studies, and studies that focused on allied health programs such as nursing, public health, global health, dentistry, and pharmacy.

Charting the data

The main characteristics of each graduate SDH medical curriculum were detailed, including the discipline integrating the program, the program title, length, educational methods, teaching concepts, and methods of curriculum evaluation. In this stage, data from the selected articles were extracted to a Microsoft Excel sheet, and key information about the authors and year of publication was included.

Quality assessment tool.

Two reviewers (DO, NN) performed an independent quality assessment for each article. The Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument (MERSQI) [ 21 ] was selected for quality appraisal of the included articles. The appraisal tools assessed the articles over six domains – study design, sampling, type of data, validity of the evaluation, data synthesis, and outcome. All the included articles had a score of 9 and above, which is acceptable.

The original search yielded 970 articles. A total of 141 duplicates were removed. In the initial title and abstract screening step, 829 articles were examined. A further 801 articles were removed upon applying exclusion criteria. The exclusion criteria were: unrelated to SDH ( n  = 229), associated with undergraduate curricula ( n  = 129), not curriculum-based ( n  = 97), irrelevant ( n  = 71), nursing curricula ( n  = 62), related to public health and disease prevention ( n  = 57), allied health curricula ( n  = 50), considered with global health and elimination of global issues ( n  = 25), internship ( n  = 20), unstructured programs ( n  = 20), social accountability ( n  = 13), pharmacy curricula ( n  = 11), dentistry curricula ( n  = 9) and book chapter ( n  = 8).

Only 28 articles met the inclusion criteria. The next step was a full examination of the 28 articles that met the inclusion criteria and whose focus was oriented toward the contents of the SDH in graduate medical education. At this point, we removed seven articles as they did not meet the quality assessment criteria.

A total of 21 articles met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. A hand search through the references of the included articles yielded another four studies; three were deemed eligible for inclusion, and one pilot program was excluded. The final number of articles included in the review was 24.

Summary of the graduate SDH training programs

Of the 24 programs included in the current scoping review, 22 were from graduate residency programs in the United States of America(USA), one from Canada, and one from a residency program in Kenya. Almost 50% ( n  = 12) of the articles were based on pediatric graduate curricula, while nearly 21% ( n  = 5) were from internal medicine programs, as indicated in Table  2 .

Structure and duration of the postgraduate SDH training

As Table  3 illustrates, of the 24 articles analyzed, the duration of the program relating to SDH varied. Twelve programs had longitudinal modules, spanning one to 3 years in the postgraduate medical residency [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ], while five other programs spanned two to 9 months in the postgraduate medical residency [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ]. Seven programs took between 2 weeks and 6 weeks [ 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 43 , 44 ], while the shortest program involved three online simulations; each simulation is 4 hours (one-half day) and completed during a module on advocacy [ 45 ].

The structure of the programs related to SDH varied across a range of thematic areas. A total of five courses had a focus on home visits and different community healthcare interventions [ 23 , 30 , 31 , 40 , 41 ], while another set of 10 programs was in the form of case-based workshops on a variety of topics such as prison healthcare, housing issues locating pharmacies and follow-up of patients after discharge [ 24 , 25 , 26 , 28 , 29 , 32 , 34 , 39 , 43 , 45 ] Lastly, nine programs focused on health advocacy topics, such as opportunities to integrate SDH at community health clinics, housing, education, and legal issues, integration of health disparities to clinical practices and equity, diversity, and inclusion [ 22 , 27 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 44 ].

Programs presentation methods

The approach to presenting the graduate SDH training and learning activities varied. All the programs used participatory learning, “where the learners are actively participating instead of being passive listeners,” as an educational strategy in combination with other teaching modalities. Eleven programs combined participatory learning with community placement and didactic teaching [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 28 , 31 , 33 , 34 , 36 , 40 , 41 , 42 ]. Another six programs relied on a participatory approach, with community placement and no formal lectures [ 27 , 35 , 36 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. Three programs integrated didactic teaching and a participatory approach with no community engagement [ 29 , 37 , 38 ]. Another set of four programs included participatory learning only, requiring participant engagement, such as information gathering, group discussions, and activities [ 22 , 26 , 32 , 39 ].

Evaluation of the graduate SDH programs

All the reviewed programs ( n  = 24) had an evaluation component in their curriculum. Six programs used pre- and post-learning evaluation surveys [ 24 , 25 , 30 , 32 , 35 , 38 ], while 11 programs used only post-learning evaluation surveys [ 22 , 27 , 28 , 31 , 36 , 37 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 44 , 45 ]. Three programs used thematic analysis of participants’ written reflections and interviews [ 26 , 34 , 44 ]. One program used both post-course interviews and participants’ reflections analysis [ 23 ]. One program combined pre and post-surveys with participants’ reflections [ 29 ]. Another program used pre-surveys and post-course reflections [ 43 ].Only one program evaluated the participants and the patient’s primary guardians’ views [ 33 ].

Five programs evaluated the participants’ affective learning, including their awareness, interest, and empathy combined with their level of knowledge regarding the SDH within the local context [ 23 , 29 , 31 , 42 , 44 ]. Another three programs used affective learning assessment solely [ 33 , 35 , 41 ]. One program adopted a comprehensive assessment on the three levels, including participants’ attitudes, knowledge, and performance [ 43 ]. Another program incorporated knowledge and performance as an evaluation tool [ 38 ], and one used the candidate’s performance as the main evaluation aspect [ 34 ]. Additionally, 13 programs only used the participants’ knowledge level as an evaluation indicator [ 22 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 30 , 32 , 37 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 45 ]..

This work details a scoping review of literature relating to incorporating the SDH in graduate medical training curricula. Notably, of a total of 24 included articles, 22 programs were implemented in the USA medical schools [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 45 ], with one program in Canada [ 44 ] and only one from a low- and middle-income country (Kenya) [ 22 ]. The evaluation of the programs varied on different levels; most programs performed post-learning evaluation only for the participants, and only one program added the patient’s perspective on the quality of service provided. The evaluation modules used need more clarity in reporting. The programs with extended training over the years reported a more favorable impact on the knowledge and the participant’s skills regarding SDH concepts. Participants favored training programs that blinded academic knowledge with community placement.

Paediatric training programs took the lead in training healthcare professionals in SDH. Other specialties, such as internal medicine, family medicine, and psychiatry, needed to be more proactive in integrating the SDH into their curriculum. Incorporating SDH concepts for all healthcare training is essential for weaving socially accountable healthcare into healthcare systems [ 46 ]..

Participants rated the SDH programs with a multi-year longitudinal structure highly. This finding agrees with other studies suggesting that spiral training programs improve trainees’ community integration, mentorship, confidence, knowledge in evidence-based medicine, patient-centred care, and reflective practice [ 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ].. Our study found heterogeneity in each program’s content, as SDH factors can differ from one geographical location to another. The WHO study states that educators should apply a local context approach to tackle this issue [ 51 ]..

All the programs’ teaching strategies involved the participants in the teaching process, so-called “participatory learning.” The programs integrated academic knowledge with community placement and significantly impacted the comprehension of SDH concepts and their application in real-life situations. These findings correlate with studies emphasizing that combining theoretical learning with community engagement will enhance participants’ ability to cultivate an understanding of the core principles of the taught subject [ 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 ]..

Finally, most programs evaluated the participants’ knowledge level and confidence in recognizing SDH-related factors pre- and post, or post-program only. The reported evaluation outcomes included improved knowledge, awareness, and trust in dealing with diverse and underserved communities. Only one program interviewed the patients’ guardians and evaluated the care received by the trained physician [ 33 ]. This finding highlights a gap in program evaluation and the need to identify standardized criteria to monitor the success of SDH teaching in postgraduate curricula [ 58 ]..

Study limitations and strengths

The number of published articles demonstrating the implementation of SDH training in postgraduate programs is limited. This limitation is likely a significant under-representation of the innovation and scope of SDH integration into postgraduate curricula and again highlights the need for more high-quality literature assessing the effective incorporation, delivery, and assessment of SDH competencies. The scope of articles available in English primarily limited our study. The study focused on the programs including SDH teaching as a separate module not included with public health or global health. Our study is constrained by the unavailability of data from specific databases, which has restricted the scope of our research. Despite these limitations, our study has several strengths. Our study represents a pioneering effort in the field by conducting a comprehensive analysis of integrating SDH into graduate medical training programs. The significance of this research lies in its ability to shed light on the current state of these programs and identify critical areas for improvement. This study displays the heterogeneity of evaluation for such training programs and the deficiency in following the downstream impact of this training on patients’ health. These findings further support questions raised by medical education experts such as Sharma et al. (2018), who explained the importance of SDH teaching and the role of educators and training institutions yet criticized the focus on integration rather than evaluation [ 59 ]..

Implications for practice and future research

Our review has identified several future research implications; there needs to be more representation of the published literature about the topic in general and from low- and middle-income countries. The different expression of the SDH training programs by the developed countries’ training institutions may be because of the influence of The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). The ACGME approves complete and independent medical education programs in the United States and Canada. The ACGME standards include addressing health equity and enhancing cultural competency through the taught curriculum of the accredited graduate program, which compels medical institutions to integrate SDH into their curricula [ 60 , 61 ]. This shows the critical influence accrediting bodies have on the content of medical curricula. As the United Nations (UN) stated in 2015, low- and middle-income countries face triple the burden of health issues and, therefore, creating a well-trained healthcare force and robust health system performance will decrease social disparities [ 62 , 63 ].

Integrating SDH into graduate medical education curricula is a dynamic and evolving area of research and practice. While the literature highlights the growing recognition of the importance of SDH education, it also reveals gaps in standardized curriculum development, assessment strategies, and long-term evaluation. Providing a multi-level structure approach for the methodology, implementation, and evaluation of SDH training programs will allow training bodies and institutions to integrate SDH concepts more effectively and produce a transparent blueprint for others to follow. Addressing these gaps will ensure that medical graduates are prepared to overcome complex SDH in healthcare.

Availability of data and materials

Data are available upon request by the corresponding author.

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Nour, N., Onchonga, D., Neville, S. et al. Integrating the social determinants of health into graduate medical education training: a scoping review. BMC Med Educ 24 , 565 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05394-2

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Published on 23.5.2024 in Vol 26 (2024)

Mobile Health Apps, Family Caregivers, and Care Planning: Scoping Review

Authors of this article:

• Marjorie M Kelley 1 , MS, RN, PhD   ; 
• Tia Powell 2 , MD   ; 
• Djibril Camara 3 , MPH, MD   ; 
• Neha Shah 4 , MSPH   ; 
• Jenna M Norton 4 , MPH, PhD   ; 
• Chelsea Deitelzweig 5 , BA   ; 
• Nivedha Vaidy 4   ; 
• Chun-Ju Hsiao 6 , PhD   ; 
• Jing Wang 7 , MPH, RN, PhD   ; 
• Arlene S Bierman 5 , MS, MD  

1 The Ohio State University College of Nursing, Columbus, OH, United States

2 Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, United States

3 Credence Management Solution, USAID Global Health Technical Professionals, Washington, DC, United States

4 National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, MD, United States

5 Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, Rockville, MD, United States

6 Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement, Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, Rockville, MD, United States

7 Florida State University College of Nursing, Tallahassee, FL, United States

Corresponding Author:

Arlene S Bierman, MS, MD

Agency for Health Care Research and Quality

5600 Fishers Lane

Rockville, MD, 20857

United States

Phone: 1 (301) 427 1104

Email: [email protected]

Background: People living with multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) face substantial challenges in planning and coordinating increasingly complex care. Family caregivers provide important assistance for people with MCCs but lack sufficient support. Caregiver apps have the potential to help by enhancing care coordination and planning among the health care team, including patients, caregivers, and clinicians.

Objective: We aim to conduct a scoping review to assess the evidence on the development and use of caregiver apps that support care planning and coordination, as well as to identify key factors (ie, needs, barriers, and facilitators) related to their use and desired caregiver app functionalities.

Methods: Papers intersecting 2 major domains, mobile health (mHealth) apps and caregivers, that were in English and published from 2015 to 2021 were included in the initial search from 6 databases and gray literature and ancestry searches. As per JBI (Joanna Briggs Institute) Scoping Review guidelines and PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews), 2 authors independently screened full texts with disagreements resolved by a third author. Working in pairs, the authors extracted data using a pilot-tested JBI extraction table and compared results for consensus.

Results: We identified 34 papers representing 25 individual studies, including 18 (53%) pilot and feasibility studies, 13 (38%) qualitative studies, and 2 experimental or quasi-experimental studies. None of the identified studies assessed an intervention of a caregiver app for care planning and coordination for people with MCCs. We identified important caregiver needs in terms of information, support, and care coordination related to both caregiving and self-care. We compiled desired functionalities and features enabling apps to meet the care planning and care coordination needs of caregivers, in particular, the integration of caregiver roles into the electronic health record.

Conclusions: Caregiver needs identified through this study can inform developers and researchers in the design and implementation of mHealth apps that integrate with the electronic health record to link caregivers, patients, and clinicians to support coordinated care for people with MCCs. In addition, this study highlights the need for more rigorous research on the use of mHealth apps to support caregivers in care planning and coordination.

Introduction

In 2020, between 17.7 and 40 million Americans were family caregivers of adults aged 65 years or older [ 1 ], defined as unpaid relatives, partners, or friends who assist persons in daily activities due to disease, disability, or other conditions. The need for family caregivers is projected to increase by 2030 with the older adult population and complexity of care increasing [ 2 ]. Many care recipients have multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) defined as the presence of 2 or more chronic physical or mental health conditions [ 3 ]. Over a quarter of the US adult population (27.2%) struggles with MCCs, with the highest prevalence (76.9%) among adults with both Medicare and Medicaid [ 3 ]. People living with MCCs are high users of care, including outpatient, emergency, inpatient, postacute, home, and long-term care, as well as prescription drugs [ 4 ]. People with MCCs account for 64% of all clinician visits, 70% of all in-patient stays, 83% of all prescriptions, 71% of all health care spending, and 93% of Medicare spending [ 5 ].

Complex care routines are common among patients with MCCs and often difficult for people living with MCCs and their caregivers to maintain, leading to avoidable adverse events, poor health outcomes, increased health spending, duplication of services, and polypharmacy [ 6 ]. The many challenges associated with care complexity and care planning add to the physical, psychological, and financial burdens associated with caregiving [ 7 ]. In fact, 14.5% of American caregivers have reported that they experienced mental health decline for at least half the days in a month [ 2 ].

Poor caregiver health and unmet needs have been widely documented and include mental and physical health concerns [ 8 ], unmet need for information on medication and care management to support the care recipient [ 7 ], limited access to supportive services [ 7 ], issues with communication across the care continuum [ 9 ], and burdens associated with work, social isolation [ 7 ], and finances [ 10 ]. Importantly, assistance with care coordination and planning has been consistently noted as an unmet need for caregivers [ 11 ].

Care Planning and Care Coordination

Developing care plans and organizing care involves the marshaling of personnel and other resources needed to carry out essential patient care activities and requires the exchange of information among participants responsible for different aspects of care [ 12 ]. Care planning is a collaborative process focused on discussing patient and clinical goals of care, conducting shared decision-making to identify strategies for clinical and self-management to achieve these goals based on evidence and patient preference, clarifying roles for different members of the care team, and empowering patients and caregivers [ 13 ]. These processes link health professionals, caregivers, and patients in the tasks of designing and implementing care.

Developing a comprehensive care plan both requires and supports care coordination by aggregating and streamlining data on health and social concerns, goals, care management strategies, and health status. Effective care coordination entails the organization of patient care activities to facilitate the appropriate and timely delivery of health care services by multiple clinicians in multiple care settings [ 12 ]. Care coordination involves the patient, clinicians, health care teams including nurses, pharmacists, physical therapists, and social workers, and caregivers. Such care coordination has been shown to benefit multiple domains, including decreased symptoms and mortality, and increased quality of life [ 14 ].

Digital Solutions

Digital solutions offer an opportunity to alleviate some of the care planning and coordination burdens currently shouldered by caregivers and patients. Digital health solutions encompass a variety of information or communication technologies applied to health needs. Digital health is mobile health (mHealth) when implemented on mobile devices. Digital health apps—or programs designed to accomplish specific tasks—fall into the category of mHealth when they are designed to operate on a mobile device.

mHealth apps have the inherent capability of increasing the reach of interventions, and transcending geography and time. They are also often more broadly accessible in the United States, as the uptake of mobile devices is greater than desktop computers [ 11 ]. Furthermore, they can be explicitly tailored to individual needs. Recent advances in technology and software now allow apps to be linked to other digital devices and the electronic health record (EHR).

Several systematic reviews outlined challenges associated with existing apps for caregivers, especially insufficient scientific evidence to support the efficacy of these apps [ 15 - 20 ]. However, no review has focused either on care planning and coordination apps overall or on caregivers of people with MCCs. Moreover, no review focused on the importance of care planning and coordination between the caregiver, care recipient, and professional health care providers. We conducted a scoping review to examine the evidence on the development and use of caregiver apps designed to support care planning and coordination, identify key factors related to their use (ie, needs, barriers, and facilitators), and characterize desired functionality. This review was undertaken to inform the development of a comprehensive, interoperable electronic care plan with clinician-, patient-, and caregiver-facing components to enhance care planning and coordination, address fragmentation of health care, and enhance the collection and sharing of critical patient-centered data across community, clinical, and research settings for people living with MCCs. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), with support from the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation’s Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund, are working in partnership to develop an interoperable e-care plan.

We conducted a scoping literature review using JBI (Joanna Briggs Institute) Scoping Review guidelines [ 21 ] and the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) [ 22 ] to guide our methods and reporting. Papers published in English between January 2011 and June 2021 were included. Hence, our initial search activity specific to care planning and coordination revealed a dearth of papers, we broadened our search to include papers intersecting 2 major domains: mHealth apps and caregivers ( Figure 1 ). We hoped to capture available information relevant to care planning and coordination from the perspective of the caregiver. We included mobile health apps like native apps (ie, residing on smartphones) as well as web-based apps designed for smartphone formats. We included all diseases and conditions and care settings (eg, ambulatory, hospital, home, hospice, and long-term care). Study types included pilot and feasibility and experimental and quasi-experimental study designs. Source documents included academic peer-reviewed journals, dissertations and theses, government policy documents, and white papers published by caregiver advocacy organizations (eg, AARP [American Association of Retired Persons] and National Alliance for Caregiving). Studies including paid caregivers or caregivers of patients aged younger than 18 years were excluded. Interventions delivered via social media, phone calls (including interactive voice response), video, telehealth, or text messaging alone were excluded. We also excluded interventions delivered in low- and middle-income countries given significant differences in information technology infrastructure and patterns of use [ 23 ]. As such, comparisons would be difficult. Research interventions involving assistive technologies (ie, motion sensors), non–health related, and health literacy alone were excluded. Source documents such as opinion or editorial papers, conference posters or abstracts, study protocols, blogs, and websites were excluded. Key search terms ( Textbox 1 ) alone or in combination, were used to create our search protocols in 6 databases: PubMed, Cochrane, CINAHL, SCOPUS, Web of Science, and Embase. We conducted ancestry searches of caregiver app reviews and caregiver literature reviews and searched several domain-specific journal databases including the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association , Journal of Medical Internet Research , International Journal of Medical Informatics , Journal of the American Medical Association , and New England Journal of Medicine .

• Caregiver; caretaker; care provider; carer; care

mHealth app

• mHealth; “mobile health” app; applications; “digital application”; eHealth; and smartphone
• Medical Subject Headings terms: telemedicine [encompasses mHealth]; mobile applications

We exported search results into EndNote, a reference management software platform to eliminate duplications, then uploaded them into Covidence, a web-based systematic review platform, to streamline evidence synthesis and author collaboration. Covidence allowed the research team to work collaboratively when screening papers at the title, abstract, and full-text level. In total, 2 authors independently screened titles and abstracts for eligibility with full-text screening conducted in the same manner. Screening disagreements were resolved through discussion or review by a third author. In keeping with scoping review methodological practices, critical appraisal, and risk of bias were not assessed.

Working in pairs, authors independently extracted data after adapting the JBI data extraction template and a previously used and pilot-tested data extraction table [ 24 ]. Then, each author compared results with the other for consensus about the extracted element. Data extraction elements included first author, publication date, health care domain of the care recipient, country, title, participant demographics, study purpose, study design, intervention description, app name and hyperlink if available, primary app users (ie, patient, caregiver, health care provider, and other), key or primary findings, app features and functionality—including desired functionality, how app supported care coordination, and how app supported caregivers ( Multimedia Appendix 1 [ 25 - 45 ]). For qualitative studies, we extracted data elements associated with caregiver needs and desires. We used conventional content analysis methods, previously described by Hsieh and Shannon [ 46 ], to code and group categories as the phenomena of interest was new with little of the theoretical or literature available to guide the analysis. In keeping with conventional content analysis methods [ 47 ], we relied on inductive category development as categories and subcategories emerged from the literature, followed by deductive category and subcategory assignment.

Of the 3019 nonduplicative records screened, 34 papers [ 25 - 45 , 48 - 60 ] representing 25 individual studies were included in this scoping literature review ( Figure 1 ; Multimedia Appendix 1 ). Publication dates ranged from 2015 to 2021, with 29 (76%) papers published between January 2018 and August 2021. In total, 18 (53%) papers were feasibility, usability, or pilot studies [ 25 - 27 , 29 - 37 , 39 - 43 , 45 ] with qualitative or needs assessment papers representing 38% (n=13) [ 48 - 60 ]. Only 3 papers [ 28 , 38 , 44 ] reported using quantitative research methods to assess intervention efficacy ( Textbox 2 ). Research was predominantly conducted in the United States (22 of 34). Further, 5 papers were from Australia, 3 from Spain, and one each from Canada, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Turkey. In total, 14 papers focused on cancer caregiving, 7 on dementia caregiving, 6 on general caregiving, 2 each for stem cell transplant and mental health, and one each on heart failure, liver, mental health, and hospice. See Textbox 2 for details of the health care domain and paper type.

Cancer (n=14)

• Experimental and quasi-experimental (n=1)
• Pilot, feasibility, or usability (n=9)
• Qualitative (n=4)

Dementia (n=7)

• Pilot, feasibility, or usability (n=2)

General caregiving (n=6)

• Pilot, feasibility, or usability (n=4)
• Qualitative (n=1)

Mental health (n=2)

• Qualitative (n=2)

Stem cell transplant (n=2)

• Pilot, feasibility, or usability (n=1)

Heart failure (n=1)

Liver (n=1)

Hospice pain management (n=1)

Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Studies

Of the 3 quasi-experimental or experimental studies [ 28 , 38 , 44 ], Park and colleagues [ 38 ] developed an app for caregivers focused on knowledge of dementia, communication, and coping. Ferré-Grau and colleagues [ 28 ] conducted a randomized controlled trial of an app intervention designed to promote caregiver mental health. Finally, research conducted by Uysal et al [ 44 ], used an app for caregivers of patients with cancer focused on caregiver self-care and education. Overall, these studies, like many mHealth interventions for caregivers, addressed important caregiver needs including quality of life. However, none of these apps linked to information in the EHRs or leveraged data standards to support interoperability of data across the care team, nor did the apps provide enhanced communication among caregivers and the health care team. None of the studies investigated or measured care planning or coordination.

Pilot and Feasibility Studies

In total, 18 pilot and feasibility papers [ 25 - 27 , 29 - 37 , 39 - 43 , 45 ], representing 12 studies, were included in this review. The majority (n=14, 78%) of these studies used small convenience samples. Furthermore, 11 of the papers focused exclusively on caregiver mental health or included a component of caregiver mental health in the interventions [ 25 - 27 , 32 - 34 , 36 , 37 , 39 , 40 , 43 ]. In total, 5 reported on apps that included disease education or caregiving education [ 25 , 26 , 31 , 37 , 41 ]. Further, 3 focused on caregiver communications with family and friends [ 41 , 42 , 45 ] but did not assess care coordination or communication with health care providers. One included education on the skills necessary to communicate with health care professionals but did not assess care planning, coordination, or communication as an outcome as it was a feasibility study [ 45 ].

Most of the pilot and feasibility studies focused on the important goal of supporting caregivers’ wellness but did not address care planning or coordination. For example, in one study—with results described in 3 papers [ 27 , 39 , 40 ]—the researchers conducted a 12-week feasibility study using a psycho-educational intervention delivered via video sessions with a goal of caregiver stress reduction. In another study [ 25 , 37 ], investigators used a mindfulness app and assessed cultural sensitivity and barriers to use as feasibility criteria. Kubo and colleagues [ 32 - 34 ] evaluated a commercially available mindfulness app to assess the feasibility of use to improve caregivers’ mental health. Similarly, Sikder and colleagues [ 43 ] pilot-tested an app focused on improving depression symptoms among caregivers.

In total, 7 papers included caregivers only as participants [ 27 , 31 , 36 , 39 , 40 , 42 , 43 ], while 9 papers included caregivers and care recipients as participants [ 25 , 29 , 30 , 32 - 35 , 37 , 41 ]. Only 2 feasibility studies, one conducted by Brown et al [ 26 ] and the other conducted by Wittenberg and colleagues [ 45 ], also included health professionals as participants. Brown and colleagues [ 26 ] examined the feasibility of an app for dementia caregivers, and included caregivers, homecare case managers, and primary health care providers as participants. The platform, CareHeros, was designed with the goal of bidirectional sharing of care recipients’ information between caregivers and health care professionals. The platform did not communicate with EHRs, and bidirectional communication was only reported between case managers and primary care providers, exclusive of caregivers and care recipients. There was limited uptake of the app, with participants logging into CareHeros an average of only 2.18 times over the 11-week period of this study. Wittenberg and colleagues [ 45 ] demonstrated the feasibility of an mHealth app to support caregiver communication skills related to caregiving. The overall objectives of the app development included: (1) to improve caregiver communication skills related to caregiving, (2) to facilitate information sharing among family members, (3) to provide self-care resources for caregivers, and (4) to increase caregiver knowledge. The app was not designed to connect to the EHR, nor was it designed to increase or support communication between caregivers and health care professionals. Caregivers and health care professionals participated in the design and the development of the app as well as usability and acceptability testing. Both groups found the app to be usable and acceptable for helping caregivers with educational needs and communication skills related to caregiving.

While none of the 18 pilot and feasibility studies directly evaluated care planning or coordination as an aim or outcome, 2 [ 30 , 35 ] investigated apps that could assist in care delivery—with caregivers assessing care recipients’ pain [ 35 ] and caregivers assessing care recipients’ hepatic encephalopathy [ 30 ]. Ganapathy and colleagues [ 30 ] used the PatientBuddy app, which sent alerts with critical values regarding hepatic encephalopathy to dyads of patients and caregivers as well as clinicians to support care management, obtaining a positive impact reducing 30-day readmissions in a small cohort. Mayahara et al [ 35 ] conducted a pilot study using e-Pain Reporter, which assisted caregivers in assessing and managing the pain of family members in home hospice. The e-Pain Reporter was designed to provide information on patient pain and pain management to nurses in real time. However, this pilot study did not assess the communication aspect of the app.

In summary, among these pilot and feasibility studies, heterogeneity in study design, interventions, and outcomes preclude meta-analysis, generalization, and direct comparisons. Additionally, most failed to provide support for care planning or coordination and none linked with the EHR or leveraged interoperable data standards. As with most pilot and feasibility studies, these results were preliminary, not powered to identify statistically significant differences in outcomes, and were specific to the app under investigation. Still, a small number of promising studies [ 26 , 30 , 35 , 45 ] attempted to enhance communication or information sharing, a component of care planning and coordination.

Qualitative Studies

In total, 13 (38%) papers [ 48 - 60 ] included in this review were qualitative studies assessing caregiver needs associated with mHealth apps. These caregiver needs were synthesized into 3 broad categories: (1) needs associated with providing care, (2) needs associated with self-care, and (3) desired app features and functionality. In terms of providing care (category 1), caregivers needed information, support, and help with care coordination. For self-care (category 2), caregivers reported a need for information and support. A detailed list of desired mHealth app features and functionality (category 3) is provided in Textbox 3 .

Needs associated with providing care

• Adjusting to a new role
• Information on disease or condition of care recipient
• Information on disease or condition common comorbidities
• Symptom, behavior, or safety
• When to seek help
• Changing nature of caregiving
• Financial and legal services (financial assistance, job help, and health care payment)
• On-demand education and training
• Community support links (transportation or community reintegration)
• Content tailored to care recipients’ needs
• Simple—easy to understand
• Up-to-date scientific evidence and mechanism for updating the information
• Multimodal delivery of information: video, audio, text, or animations
• Always accessible
• Support for care recipients’ physical and emotional needs
• Support with rehabilitation and activities of daily living (oral, bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, feeding and nutrition, transferring, and ambulation)
• Decision-making support
• Medication management
• Tracking and monitoring of care recipient—mental, physical, emotional, and social (including symptoms, vital signs)
• Content tailored to care recipient’s needs
• Family or personal relationships (asking for help, safety, and communication)
• Integrated app with health care system—care coordination
• Ability to complete questionnaires at home, unrushed
• Finding care equipment
• List of important contacts and contact information for quick reference
• Information and connection to support services (specialty care, first responders, advocacy organizations, and respite services)
• Relationships with health care providers (personal contact)
• Feedback from health care providers—instant
• Automated data entry and reminders or prompts
• “One-stop-shopping”—all information in 1 place

Needs associated with self-care

• Information to help improve caregivers’ health (stress management, peer support, and support groups)
• Activities, programs, and therapy to improve mental, physical, and social support of caregivers
• Content tailored to caregivers’ needs
• Family or personal relationship help (safety or asking others for help or support)
• Preventing social isolation
• Tracking and monitoring of caregiver—mental, physical, emotional, or social (including symptoms, mental health, vital signs)
• Content tailored to caregiver needs
• Social media—“people like me” with expert moderator
• Peer mentor, support, or coaching

Desired mHealth app features and functionality

• Easy to use
• Easy to learn
• Integrated with phone contacts and other apps (exercise and weight management)
• Ability to report care recipient status or symptoms to health care providers and get a response, feedback, or follow-up quickly
• Task reminders (appointments, medication management, etc)
• Integrate with other platforms or devices (electronic health records, smart watches, or pharmacy)
• Share information with family members
• Integrate music or other entertainment
• Track patient symptoms or issues over time
• Track caregiver issues over time
• Customizable
• App from a trusted source and evidence-based content
• Data secure
• Integrated across health care systems
• Not too much information—just in time with the right information
• Font or screen size readable—Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design compliant
• Sustainable
• Help for digital naïve
• Does not reduce time with physician
• Clear perceived benefit
• Ability to personalize features and functions
• Automated data entry

Principal Findings

This scoping review synthesized the evidence on the development and use of caregiver apps designed to enable or support caregiver participation in care planning or care coordination. We identified key factors (ie, needs, barriers, and facilitators) related to care planning and coordination. We described important functionalities and features enabling caregiver apps to meet care planning and coordination needs and facilitate caregiving activities. This comprehensive summary of caregiver needs related to health apps and care coordination may be useful to developers and researchers as it relates to caregivers of those living with MCCs. A better understanding of usability and overall needs will enhance ongoing research efforts to improve e-care planning and care coordination among these populations.

Of the 34 papers, representing 25 individual studies included in this review, only 3 were experimental or quasi-experimental intervention studies [ 28 , 38 , 44 ]. None of the studies included in this review focused on care planning, care coordination, or care recipients with MCCs. This paucity of research precluded generalizations about caregivers’ apps, much less in care planning and coordination. Although most of the studies included in this review addressed important caregiver factors including caregiver education, coping, and self-care, these standalone interventions lacked components to reduce caregiver burdens associated with planning and coordinating complex care. An app designed to specifically improve care planning and coordination, thus reducing this burden, is needed—particularly for the increasing number of care recipients with MCCs.

Most studies within this review were qualitative studies or pilot and feasibility studies. Yet, a few of these studies [ 26 , 30 , 35 , 45 ] identified elements important for care planning and coordination in mHealth apps. By definition, these studies are preliminary in nature thus precluding generalizations; they do not represent proven efficacy or settled science. However, they provide a foundation for future exploration of the role of mHealth interventions in promoting care planning and coordination.

Comparison to Prior Work

Our findings parallel and extend the results identified in a recent review focused on native apps for informal caregiving [ 61 ]. Native apps are apps residing on smartphones as opposed to web-based apps. The principal findings specific to native apps [ 61 ] align with our more comprehensive review (including both native and web-based apps) in that the nascent technology has not matured enough to make meaningful recommendations beyond that of caregiver needs and wants. More rigorous research is needed, specifically among caregivers of patients with MCCs.

In terms of caregiver needs associated with care planning and coordination, caregivers and care recipients in included studies identified several important areas of needs and wants including apps that delivered “one-stop-shopping” or all the information in 1 place. These needs and wants were similar to those identified by Margarido and colleagues [ 61 ] in their 2022 scoping review. The results from both indicated caregivers wanted apps that integrated with the health care system (including the EHR) and could allow them to complete questionnaires at home in an unrushed fashion. They wanted apps that could help them find care equipment and information about support services and support contacts. Relationships with health care providers and feedback from the providers were of key importance, as were timely reminders and prompts (eg, upcoming appointments and medication changes).

Future Directions

More research is needed as this scoping review did not identify any of the following: an app designed to provide access and enhance communication among caregivers, patients, and health care workers, with access for all 3 groups to the EHR; use of data standards in apps to promote interoperability of data across the care team, including caregivers and care recipients; a focus on care planning and coordination; a free and publicly available digital platform; or demonstration of successful usability, efficacy, and sustainability.

The potential exists for emerging mHealth apps to contribute to care coordination by linking caregivers, patients, and clinicians to information and resources that improve the ability of the entire care team to actively engage. Ongoing research focused on developing and evaluating [ 62 - 65 ] interventions to support caregiver engagement in health care through direct EHR access and other digital means could provide important insights. Today, mHealth app-facilitated care planning and coordination remains a possibility, not a reality. This scoping review provides further evidence that existing caregiver-facing mHealth apps are not sufficiently supported by research, with many studies focused on well-educated, tech-savvy female caregivers [ 30 , 37 , 50 ]. There is a need for app development to meet caregiver needs in diverse populations. Most such apps address the burdens of caregiving through interventions aimed at education, self-care, and stress reduction. Though these are helpful, they do not address the fundamental challenges related to care planning and coordination.

Current government federal policies encourage care planning and coordination. There is a federal mandate through the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology for third-party mHealth apps to integrate with the EHR. These technologies need to be implemented into current health care workflows, but data blocking and the inability to write back to the EHR present challenges. Current workforce shortages, especially for nurses, are well documented and may increase the difficulty of introducing new technologies and tasks, requiring both additional training and time from an already overburdened workforce. On the other hand, a well-designed app that facilitates information sharing, care planning, and communication could potentially reduce the burden.

Strengths and Limitations

We acknowledge several limitations of this study. First, papers included in the scoping review do not include work published after June 2021. It is possible our search terms failed to identify relevant papers in this rapidly developing field. Second, the review included only studies published in English. Though digital health literature is predominantly published in English, there is the possibility of missing important work in other languages. In keeping with guidelines for scoping reviews, we neither assessed the risk of bias nor methodologies in the included studies. Finally, the heterogeneity of included research precluded a meta-analysis of findings across all studies.

This scoping review synthesizes the current evidence on developing mHealth apps to support caregivers in care planning and coordination, providing insights to inform future mHealth app development to engage caregivers as members of the health care team, share critical information across the entire health care team, reduce the burdens caregivers experience in trying to coordinate care, as well as identifying the functionality caregivers desired. Few experimental studies involving apps with needed functionality were identified in the scoping review, even though use of digital technology for caregiver support is a growing interest. We found no studies focused on care planning or coordination, and a very small number of pilot and other preliminary studies addressing specific aspects of care coordination, such as communication. Given the limited number of studies and the preliminary nature of many, there is insufficient evidence on mHealth apps to support caregivers in care planning and coordination. However, the need and potential for further work to achieve these aims is substantial.

Conclusions

In sum, research and evidence on the effective use of mHealth apps to support caregivers involved in care planning and coordination for people living with MCCs is limited. Apps to support caregivers have yet to be integrated into the EHRs. Multidirectional communication between caregivers, care recipients, and health care providers through the EHR holds great promise for relieving the burden on clinicians, patients, and their caregivers alike. The development and implementation of an mHealth app linking the 3 key stakeholder groups to work together to [ 65 ] enhance care planning and coordination, remains an unmet need. Prior work on the functionality desired by caregivers can inform this work.

Acknowledgments

No generative artificial intelligence was used. The findings and conclusions in this document are those of the authors, who are responsible for its content, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), or the National Institutes of Health. No statement in this report should be construed as an official position of the AHRQ, NIDDK, National Institutes of Health, or the US Department of Health and Human Services. This project was conducted with support from the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation's Patient Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund.

Conflicts of Interest

None declared.

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Abbreviations

Edited by T Leung; submitted 30.01.23; peer-reviewed by J Wolff, Y Chu; comments to author 27.05.23; revised version received 28.09.23; accepted 01.03.24; published 23.05.24.

©Marjorie M Kelley, Tia Powell, Djibril Camara, Neha Shah, Jenna M Norton, Chelsea Deitelzweig, Nivedha Vaidy, Chun-Ju Hsiao, Jing Wang, Arlene S Bierman. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 23.05.2024.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

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• Healthy Food Essay

Essay on Healthy Food

Food is essential for our body for a number of reasons. It gives us the energy needed for working, playing and doing day-to-day activities. It helps us to grow, makes our bones and muscles stronger, repairs damaged body cells and boosts our immunity against external harmful elements like pathogens. Besides, food also gives us a kind of satisfaction that is integral to our mental wellbeing, but there are some foods that are not healthy. Only those food items that contain nutrients in a balanced proportion are generally considered as healthy. People of all ages must be aware of the benefits of eating healthy food because it ensures a reasonably disease-free, fit life for many years. 

Switching to a healthy diet doesn't have to be a one-size-fits-all approach. You don't have to be perfect, you don't have to eliminate all of your favourite foods and you don't have to make any drastic changes all at once—doing so frequently leads to straying or abandoning your new eating plan.

Making a few tiny modifications at a time is a recommended approach. Maintaining modest goals will help you achieve more in the long run without feeling deprived or overwhelmed by a very drastic diet change. Consider a healthy diet as a series of tiny, accessible actions such as including a salad in your diet once a day. You can slowly add additional healthy options as your minor modifications become habitual.

Cultivating a positive relationship with food is also crucial. Rather than focusing on what you should avoid, consider what you may include on your plate that will benefit your health such as nuts for heart-healthy, predominant fat that reduces low-density lipoprotein levels called monounsaturated fatty acids(raspberries) for fibre and especially the substances that inhibit oxidation which we call antioxidants.

Why is Healthy Food Important?

Living a healthy lifestyle has immense payback. Over time, making smart eating choices lowers your risk of cardiovascular disease, certain malignancies, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and even anxiety and depression. Daily, you will have more energy, feel better and possibly even be in a better mood.

It all boils down to how long and how good your life is. According to several surveys, A healthy diet consists of whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and fish. A higher diet of red or processed meats on the other hand doubled the chance of dying young.

Types of Healthy Food: 

Following are the various types of healthy foods and their respective nutritional value:

Cereals,potatoes,bread and other root vegetables- These are the main sources of carbohydrates. The calories obtained from them enable us to do work. 

Pulses, milk and milk products, eggs, bird meat, animal meat in limited quantities - these are great sources of protein. They build muscles and repair the damaged cells of our body, i.e., they are important for our immunity. 

Ghee, butter, nuts and dry fruits, edible oil used in restrained quantities- These are rich sources of good fat. They provide more energy to our body than carbohydrates but should be consumed in a smaller amount. 

Fresh fruits, vegetables and leafy vegetables, fish, egg, milk-these are good sources of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants are essential for normal functioning of the body. Though they are needed in small amounts, nowadays, nutrition experts prescribe their higher consumption as they help to fight lifestyle diseases like diabetes, obesity and even cancer. 

Different types of healthy food when included in our daily diet in the right proportions along with water and roughage comprise a balanced diet. However, a balanced diet is not the same for all individuals considering many factors. It depends on a person’s age, gender, condition of the body-healthy or suffering from any disease and the type of work or physical activity a human  does.

Benefits of Eating Healthy

Healthy food intake nourishes both our physical and mental health and helps us stay active for many years. One who break downs this broad benefit into micro-benefits will see that eating healthy:

Helps us in weight management

Makes us agile and increases our productivity 

Decreases the risk of heart diseases, stroke, diabetes mellitus, poor bone density, and some cancers, etc. 

Helps in uplifting mood

Improves memory

Improves digestion and appetite

Improves sleep cycle

Healthy food habits are inculcated in children by their parents early on. These habits along with the right education and physical exercise lead to an overall development of an individual which ultimately becomes the greatest resource of a country.

What is Unhealthy Food or Junk Food?

To fully understand the prominence of healthy food in our diet, we must also be aware of unhealthy food, that is, the food that we must avoid eating. These are mainly junk food items which are low in nutritional value and contain an excessive amount of salt, sugar and fats which is not healthy for a human body.

Junk food is one of the unhealthy intakes in the present day scenario. It makes us more unfit than ever before. It is high time that one realised this and adopted a healthy food habit for a sustainable lifestyle.

Steps to improve Eating Habits:

Make a detailed plan; break down the timings; kind of food to be included in each meal and keep the plan weekly and avoid making the process dull and repetitive. 

Cook your food, minimise eating from outside. It helps keep the ingredients, quality and measurements in check as well as saves money.

Stock your kitchen with healthy snacks for your cravings rather than processed food so that your options are reduced to consuming unhealthy food.

Take the process slowly. You do not have to have a strict plan; ease yourself into a healthy mindset. Your mind and body will adjust gradually. Consistency is important. 

Track your eating habits to understand the intake of food, items, portions etc. This motivates you to see the progress over time and make changes according to your needs.

Myths About Healthy Food:

Carrots affect eyesight: According to historic times, during World War II, there was a popular belief that eating a lot of veggies would assist maintain the pilot's eyes in good repair. In actuality, the fighter pilot's eyesight was aided by advanced technology. However, the myth has persisted since then and many parents still use this narrative to get their children to eat more veggies. Carrots are high in vitamin A and make a terrific supplement to any healthy diet, but they don't usually help you see better.

Fat-Free Food : Health foods continue to dominate grocery store shelves but it's always a good idea to look beyond the label before buying. This is especially true when it comes to "fat-free," "low-fat," and "non-fat" foods. It's generally true that anything with less fat is preferable for some dairy and meat items. 

Lower fat alternatives in packaged and processed foods contain other dangerous additives as fat substitutes. Manufacturers compensate for the loss of fat in packaged cookies, for example, by adding other undesirable elements like sugar.

Protein shakes: Pre-made smoothie beverages and protein powder mixes which typically claim to contain less sugar than milkshakes, slushies and diet sodas are likely to be the popular choice among customers because of the above mentioned reason. They both have the same amount of sugar and artificial sweeteners. 

However, this is not true of all pre-made protein shakes and smoothies. Many of them, particularly the plant-based mixtures, are still nutritious additions to a balanced diet. Check the nutrition label to be sure there are no added sugars or artificially sweetened mixtures.

Organic food is better: Foods that are grown organically are better for you. Nutritionists labelling a product as organic doesn't mean it's superior to non-organic foods. It's a popular misperception that organic produce is nutritionally superior to non-organic produce. Organic produce has the same caloric and nutritional value as non-organic produce since it is grown and prepared according to federal rules.

FAQs on Healthy Food Essay

1) Is sugar unhealthy?

Sugar is considered to be harmful for a healthy diet. Since it tastes so good in many foods, humans tend to increase it’s intake. It is also hidden in foods you wouldn't expect. It makes body organs fat, depresses well-being and also leads to heart diseases. However, to maintain a healthy diet, it is necessary to distinguish between natural and added sugars. Sugars are carbs that provide an essential source of energy and nourishment, nevertheless, sugar is often added to many popular dishes, which is when sugar becomes unhealthy. Natural sugars found in fruits and vegetables are regarded as healthy when consumed in moderation. Still added sugars give little nutritional benefit and contribute considerably to weight gain, compromising your healthy diet. As a result, it's critical to double-check the label.

2) What is Omega 3?

Omega-3 is the superfood of the fat group, which is particularly useful for various conditions, since the term "superfood" was coined. Omega-3 fatty acid is a medicine used in treating  nutritional deficiencies. It is one of the essential nutrients with good antioxidant properties. Depression, memory loss, heart problems, joint and skin disorders and general improvement of physical and mental health and wellness are among them. Omega-3 which is abundant in fish-based diets is considered a necessary fatty acid for good health.