My definition of Philosophy is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence when considered as an academic discipline. My definition of general health and welfare is the state of being free from illness or injury and a person's mental or physical condition. Putting these things together opens a whole new world to explore the human mind and develop reasoning for why we do what we do and why we act the way we act. There are six predominant Health Educational philosophies. They are as followed; behavior change, cognitive-based, decision making, freeing/functioning, social change, and eclectic. The first one is Cognitive-based philosophy (which focuses on the acquisition of content & factual information.), Decision-making philosophy (which emphasizes critical thinking and lifelong learning.), Behavior change philosophy (which focuses on modifying unhealthy habits.), Freeing/functioning philosophy (focuses on freeing people to make best health decision for them based on their needs and interests– not necessarily for society.), Social change philosophy (emphasizes creating social, economic, & political change that benefits health of individuals & groups.) and last but not least Eclectic philosophy (this focuses on an adapting approach that is appropriate for setting).
Once the boundaries of general health philosophies are established you can go on t develop different experiments with any behavior and figure a solution with each and every one of the six predominate philosophies. For example, I can use someone’s eating habits. I can change someone’s behavior with a cognitive-based philosophy theory. With cognitive-based philosophy, informing someone who is known for extensively binge eating and eating junk foods of eating so much junk food and how that can have a negative impact on their life span as well as how much they will be affected in their bodily heath as well. Using the same example for over eating for the rest of the five philosophies, Decision-making can be used to change somebody’s eating habits by again informing them with the dangers of over eating and consuming unhealthy foods. Freeing/functioning philosophies can be used to start a promotional business solely for spreading awareness and hosting seminars across your community on the dangers of consuming unhealthy food and what it will do to your health in the long run. Using behavior-changing philosophies, you can slowly take away unhealthy food from someone who has a bad habit of eating unhealthily. Every week reduce the amount of food they intake. Social change philosophy you can put them in an environment where they are around fast food all day, like a job at McDonalds. They will be around the fast food and see the type of people who go to the restaurant everyday and see how constantly eating out is impacting America. Also they constant smell of the grease will probably make them sick. And lastly social change philosophies, once again you can take the binge eater/ unhealthy eater to an extensive seminar on how their eating habits will negatively affect