Lifestyle is an area of a person’s life that bears great importance to their well-being. Many elements of one’s life are influenced by their lifestyle, including physical and mental health, productivity, and social identity. How people choose or are forced to live their lives can negatively and positively impact their health. Positive impacts can consist of improved longevity, better mood, and boosts of energy. Negative impacts include a plethora of serious diseases, and not the least dangerous of them are infectious. In order to prevent conditions that stem from these circumstances, one needs to understand how they originate and behave in the organism.
Infectious diseases (also called communicable diseases) are caused by harmful microorganisms known as pathogens. There are several types of pathogens that enter the body and cause infection by multiplying. Bacteria are not often harmful, but ones that are emit poisonous toxins. Viruses are much smaller than bacteria and damage or kill living cells by multiplying within them. Fungi are organisms that grow well in dark and moist environments; these include mold, yeast, and mushrooms. Protozoans are organisms that oftentimes consist of a singular cell and spread through fluids, such as in the case of malaria. There are also other pathogens which include animals that can cause infections; for example, trichina worm (“Health and Fitness,” n.d). Depending on the type of pathogen, the impacts and preventive measures against infectious diseases vary vastly.
The spread of pathogens could be prevented by avoiding the sources of contamination. These sources are divided into three categories: people, animals, and objects. In order to not contract any infectious diseases, one must follow simple rules. First of all, they need to maintain good hygiene, which involves washing hands thoroughly, keeping clean surfaces in the house, and ventilating living spaces. Another way to keep infections at bay is immunization: an act of creating immunity within an organism, typically through vaccination. In addition, in order to avoid sexually transmitted infectious diseases, one must exclusively engage in safe sexual intercourse.
Lifestyle diseases stem from the negative impacts created by a person’s life choices or circumstances of their living. The factors behind lifestyle diseases can be of a psychological, physical, or dietary nature. Furthermore, it is possible that all of the above-mentioned aspects affect the person’s body and mind simultaneously. In order to avoid such conditions from occurring, one needs to learn about lifestyle risk factors and attainable methods of prevention.
The most common lifestyle diseases include heart disease, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, asthma, and osteoporosis. In general, there are several factors that contribute to the development of these ailments. Smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, poor dietary habits, lack of physical activity, stress, and badly-regulated or insufficient sleeping hours contribute to these conditions. In addition, practicing unsafe sex can lead to the contraction of infectious diseases. Prevention lies in adherence to a healthy diet (under adequate guidance), physical activity, and avoidance of stress factors (Rehman & Ahmad, 2020). It is imperative that preventive measures are taken seriously and consistently for ample effect.
In conclusion, a person’s body can be affected by a plethora of conditions that stem from outside intrusions and the person’s actions. Infectious diseases come from harmful living organisms called pathogens that infiltrate a human’s body and multiply within it. Lifestyle diseases arise from a person’s actions and conditions of living. In order to avoid them, one needs to be aware of how the ailments develop and function.
References
Health and Fitness. (n.d.). Web.
Rehman, H., & Ahmad, M. I. (2020). COVID-19: Quarantine, isolation, and lifestyle diseases. Archives of Physiology and Biochemistry, 1–5.