What is Social Health?

1. What is Social Health? By Alex Seymour, Milan Bacovic, Remi Whyte & Tex Chapkoun

2. How can peer pressure negatively and positively affect one’s health?

3. As we grow older, we become more aware of our social life, in particular our peers. When we were younger, peers were generally other children that our parents thought fitting companions for each of us. • As we gain responsibilities and become more independent, it becomes our decision to make and maintain friends. Peer Pressure

4. Your peers are the people that are of a similar age to you and share the same interests as you. Peers are your friends that you choose to socialize with, often on a daily basis. They are also people in your class, sports club, music group, etc. • Peers influence each other, whether for better or worse. This is normal for humans; we tend to look on to others for advice and guidance, and who better than our peers to give it to us? Peer Pressure

5. When people hear the term “peer pressure” they often conjure up images of intimidating teens forcing their unwilling friends into ugly situations such as drinking, drugs and smoking; however, this is not always the case, peer pressure can also be very positive. Having positive peer influences can lead to: • Friendship • Role models • Advice • Socialising • Encouragement • Experiences Peer Pressure: The Positives

6. Without the influence of our peers, we might miss out on life’s many opportunities. Our peers help us when times are tough, they give us advice and they get us interested in new music, clothes and television shows. • Without peers, our lives would be extremely bland. Peers are also valuable counsellors and motivation, they can help us study, encourage us to do our best; they can empathise with us and help us figure out our problems. Peer Pressure: The Positives

7. Peers however, as many of us know, can also be negative, endangering and extremely stressful. They can often pressure you into something that you feel very uncomfortable about, possibly even something illegal or dangerous. Peer Pressure: The Negatives

8. Peer pressure can be expressed both directly and indirectly. Direct pressure would be, for example, someone saying, “Come on, everybody has drugs at some stage.” Indirect pressure may be someone taking drugs at a party. • Often peer pressure is not even this obvious, you may feel pressured to dress, speak, or act a certain way purely because others are doing it. Peer Pressure: The Negatives

9. For some, peer pressure is hard to resist, for others it is a simple matter of saying, “No.” People often act a certain way when they are new to a group or feel uncomfortable, it is natural to look to other people in order to find out how you should behave and/or act in unfamiliar circumstances. Peer Pressure: Resist

10. The first people to go along with peer pressure are generally those who follow the lead of others. After a while, it may seem that everybody is doing it. We start to think it must be safe, it must be ok. Peer Pressure: Resist

11. A few ways to resist peer pressure are: • Listen to your gut. If you feel uncomfortable about something, and are uncertain about it, that’s generally because it is wrong. You are usually the best judge of your own safety, it’s best to trust your instincts. • Learn to say, “No.” The more you practice resisting peer pressure the easier it becomes. This is also a measure of who your real friends are, with good friends, you shouldn’t have to explain your decision, no should be enough. • The most important and simple rule: Don’t hang out with people who put you in these difficult situations. If your supposed “peers” are forcing you into these unsafe circumstances, do they really care about you? Peer Pressure: Resist

12. It is also important to remember that just as people follow negative leaders, they also follow positive ones. If you stick up for yourself or for a friend, it becomes easier for others to do the same. You are often more of an influence than you may think. Peer Pressure: Change

13. Physical health has a big influence on a person’s social health. In fact, it is found that people who are more active and more physically fit tend to be happier people overall. • While this may not be true for everyone, good physical health can certainly increase the chances of better social health. This also has a big affect on mental health too. But does social health affect your physical health; is it the same thing? Can social health effect our physical health?

14. Social health has a huge affect on physical health. If you have a depression or are stressed you will not perform at your all. You social health will affect you in a lot of ways like having not many friends doesn’t help the influence of sport, having friends only influences going out and playing with your friends. Can social health effect our physical health?

15. Social health has also become relevant with the increasing evidence that those who are socially healthy in the eyes of their communities tend to live longer and recover faster from disease. • If you have poor social health you become extremely unhappy, having no friends is bad for your health. • Friends pick you up when you fall; friends correct your wrongs and make them right. Without friends you wouldn’t have much to live for. Being ant-social is unhealthy. What are the negative effects of social health?

16. How do we know if we are socially healthy? Having a wide circle of friends is being socially healthy. Being socially active with your friends is being socially healthy etc. How our social health effects our mental health will be explained in this answer. Effects of social health on our mental health?

17. Social health is a big influence on our mental health. Social health deficiencies can lead to mental health problems such as depression. If someone is socially deficient depression can arise due to the fact that they have no friends and cannot socialize with the outer-world. Effects of social health on our mental health?

18. Effects of social health on our mental health: The Positives

19. In this answer I will explain how different cultures can effect social health. How does our culture affect our social health?

20. Racism plays a big part in this discussion. Foreign cultures may find it difficult to socialize with other cultures. Other cultures have different rules that may not be familiar to those of another culture. It may be hard for foreign immigrants to socialize with those of an English background. How does our culture affect our social health?

21. Racism is also a very big issue in some countries. This has occurred very recently in the Australian Football League. A player of aboriginal descent has been racially abused by a player from the opposition. The player has been suspended for three games. How does our culture affect our social health?

22. Thanks for watching…