There are many different ways that a person’s health and level of physical activity can be influenced both positively and negatively. The sociocultural factors that influence a person include family, peers, media, religion and culture. These five factors can have a massive impact on the way people view and deal with health and physical activity.
Everyone’s family has a massive impact over what they do and eat. When you’re young, your mum or dad will cook dinner for you and set it on the table and that’s what you would eat. So if your family has been taught or engages in bad habits of eating, such as eating regularly take out foods, and cooking foods in fats, it can influence a younger person in a negative way, by setting the example of that’s what’s good to eat so they will follow their parent’s examples, think that what they are eating is okay and eat all unhealthy foods. This can cause obesity at a young age, which can lead to other health related problems such as heart disease. Parents should be setting an example for their children by slipping in daily exercise into their everyday lives, such as working or riding to school/work instead of driving. If a family doesn’t encourage or perform a lot of physical activity then their child will do the same. If this were the case, the child would be more likely to just be sitting around all day, not going outside, and being by themselves a lot. This could lead to them feeling isolated and their social health declining, leading to other mental factors such as depression.
A person’s friends or peers can have a positive influence on their attitude towards health and physical activity. If someone’s group of friends are all sporty and all participate in weekend/after school sports, then it is more likely that that person will participate too. This will increase their physical activity and their social health as they will be with their friends more. Their peers may also encourage you to do well in a certain area which will...