Doctor Marta Gil Lacruz is a psychologist, professor and researcher in the University of Zaragoza, Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Social Psychology.
In her intervention, she pointed out the relevance of determining how certain types of risk are adopted and how they are related with our lifestyle at individual and social level. Factors as personal care and the concept of wellbeing depend on lifestyle, but they should also be understood regarding other aspects, i.e. alcohol consumption. Therefore, we must consider social environment: music, songs and mass media share speeches we adopt and they are related to our eating and drinking habits and also to the way we enjoy leisure. If they are associated to excess, is essential deciding what is healthy and how we deal with this. A significant example is to reflect on the purposes we make at the beginning of the year or before summer. They are indicatives of how we preserve and accomplish our intentions and wishes regarding health. In this sense, we reflect by observing situations such as: How does an exercise day or an excursion finish? Most of times, we celebrate such a day with a meeting or lunch - including excessive food.
Talking about lifestyles is considering human aspects: how we deal with our own contradictions. As a consequence, it is necessary to think about the factors which have an influence in the adoption of a determined lifestyle and also until which extend we are adopting a social or individual lifestyle.
Considering the social aspect of a lifestyle implies understanding that our behaviour has consequences that are beyond the individual factor - even with political consequences. As an example, we should take into account how tobacco affects us and also the laws regulating its consumption. Obviously, it is not only and individual response.
In light of the above, she insisted on the approaches offered by social psychology, which consider social, health and political questions. Therefore, the proposals we carry out will lead us to different types of intervention to plan how to evaluate lifestyle to perform some changes if necessary.
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