Good Essay On Health Promotion For Adolescents

Introduction

Adolescence is a transitional period for human beings when they graduate from being a child into young adults. This period bears much significance in one’s life and it should not be taken lightly under any circumstance. The World Health Organization studies show that this lot is the healthiest group in the world. It is, thus, essential that their health be put under sufficient protection. They are the next generation and the people to keep the fire burning should their time come. Having sickly teenagers means little for the future of the world which means that it is our obligation to ensure that our youths especially the adolescents make it through this developmental stages successfully. The essence of this essay is to investigate the various ways we can promote the health of this group of people.
Adolescents will have to be under protection because as they experience these changes which are all new to them, they become susceptible to the environment and its influences. They experience both physical and psychological changes which could prove to be quite an new thing to them. The problem with this is that one can never know how they will be affected. Mostly, however, they will become rebellious which makes handling them a rather challenging endeavor. Since controlling them is out of the question as they require their freedom to experience life on their own, it becomes mandatory that approaches are devised to curb any threat to them health-wise. The threat may not necessarily be sickness but also societal factors like friends and family. The society also poses a great threat as they eventually define who and what a teenager will end up being should they manage to graduate to adulthood(Kretschmer, Oliver and Maughab 2014).
Interventions which are on the basis of person to person so as to improve the parenting skills of caregivers and parents of the adolescents is a viable approach to promote the health of the adolescents. According to Freud’s psychosexual theory of growth and development(Lenciauskiene and Zaborskis 2008), at the initial stages of adolescents, the child develops his or her superego part of the brain. This clearly means that he or she will develop morality at this stage. Therefore, having professionals intervene and give training to parents on how to handle the adolescents at this stage as the parents are the first role models the children will have. Having a repressed sexual drive, they will have temptations to learn about sex and learning for themselves is one of the causes of teenage pregnancies which are a viable threat to the adolescent’s health. The professionals can train the parents on how to teach their children about sex without feeling bad or shy so that the children can be shielded from the dangers of experimental sex(Lenciauskiene and Zaborskis 2008).
Programs that the youth can engage their minds to keep them busy should be in place. This is because the adolescent stage has curiosity as one of its main characteristics. According to Erickson’s psychosocial theory of growth and development(Hale, Raaijmakers, Hoof and Meeus 2011), between the age of 13 and 18 years, the child begins define himself or herself in regards to others of his age. This is where the factors of peer pressure come into action. Where the adolescent is an idle one, the chances that he or she will be a victim of factors such as peer pressure are extremely high. Therefore, it is important that the adolescent keeps his mind so that they may not join gangs and vices such as drug abuse. This calls for programs such as driver licensing programs which is recognized state-wide, programs that seek to prevent teenage pregnancy, programs that eek to fight delinquency, and many more(Hale, Raaijmakers, Hoof and Meeus 2011).
Quite an important approach that can be considered viable keeping the health of the adolescents safe is regulating the amount of time the adolescent is exposed to the media. Media in the twenty-first century contains a lot of elements which could either derail the health of the adolescent or make it better. Being curious fellows, the internet becomes their main source of enjoyment. One can imagine an adolescent to the portrayals of media of violence themes, drinking, smoking, and sexual content, etc. This is a risk as the adolescents can easily adopt these behaviors and that means that they may become drug addicts which are a risk to their health. For instance, alcohol has their livers at risk while smoking has their lungs in danger. It is therefore mandatory that the amount of media content available for the adolescents is limited until such a time that they get their freedom which means they are free to make their own choices(Cyr, Berman and Smith 2015).

Conclusion

The above approaches may prove helpful in an endeavor to keep the adolescents free of harm. Educating their parents and caregivers will improve the care and caution that they are given. Programs that will keep them busy will keep the adolescents from the ill effects of society such as peer pressure. Regulating their exposure to media content will also keep them from adopting behaviors that may lead to deterioration in their health. While putting all these methods in thought, one should always remember that protecting these adolescents means that the future is safe as they will become the torch bearers.

References

Cyr, B., Berman, S., & Smith, M. (2015).The Role of Communication Technology in Adolescent Relationships and Identity Development. Child & Youth Care Forum, 44(1), 79-92. doi:10.1007/s10566-014-9271-0.
Hale, W., Raaijmakers, Q., Hoof, A., &Meeus, W. (2011).The predictive capacity of perceived expressed emotion as a dynamic entity of adolescents from the general community. Social Psychiatry & Psychiatric Epidemiology, 46(6), 507-515. doi:10.1007/s00127-010-0218-y.
Kretschmer, T., Oliver, B., &Maughan, B. (2014). Pubertal Development, Spare Time Activities, and Adolescent Delinquency: Testing the Contextual Amplification Hypothesis. Journal Of Youth & Adolescence, 43(8), 1346-1360. doi:10.1007/s10964-013-0074-7.
Lenciauskiene, I., &Zaborskis, A. (2008). The effects of family structure, parent—child relationship and parental monitoring on early sexual behaviour among adolescents in nine European countries. Scandinavian Journal Of Public Health, 36(6), 607-618. doi:10.1177/1403494807088460.