Social Support and Health

Uchino’s Article on Social Support and Health: A Review of Physiological Process Potentially Underlying Links to Disease Outcomes bring up some really excellent points about the importance of Social Support in regards to overall health. 

I work in a world where health and what is “best” for someone’s “health” is talked about, debated, and exploited endlessly.  But the view of what consists of someone’s health can often times be very narrow.  For many years, the fitness industry has limited its view of health into only looking at someone’s physical activity and their nutrition intake, forgetting about other forms of health such as social support, mental health, and emotional health. 

Unfortunately, due to this hyper-focus on these two elements, a great deal of fitness practices have been built that not only lack attention to building social, mental and emotional health but that can even be damaging to these other elements of health!  There has been an increase in the amount of people who will participate in fewer social gatherings due to the need to control what they eat and or spend time exercising.  This can make people feel further alone and can create more harm than that individual even realizes. 

A friend of mine talks about how for years she was so obsessed with the kind of food she ate, how much she ate, how much she exercised and worrying about how these factors affected her health.  Then one day, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and she was forced to reexamine her life.  She was diagnosed with orthorexia and realized that this hyper focus on food and exercise was taking time away from spending time with family and friends, pursuing activates and adventures she wanted to participate in and all together, doing more harm than good and her hyper focus on “health” was not going to prevent her from ever getting sick.  It took her getting cancer to realize that her “healthy” practices where indeed not as healthy as she thought. 

This kind of story happens too often.  There is so much stress put on the amount of attention put into food and exercise while other component are ignored.  There is a balance that is needed and I believe can be achieved!  As someone who works in the fitness business, I  believe coaches and trainers have a crucial role in helping people create a well-rounded sense of health.  Instead of only looking at someone’s food and exercise habits, I try to look at the person as a whole: their stress levels, their social support, their job demands, their mental health, their overall goals and needs etc. 

One of the concepts my team and I have looked to is the self-determination theory that was explained in the Positive Psychology Introduction paper by Seligman.  For right now, I want to focus in on the relatedness portion of the theory.  By making community an important part of someone’s fitness and gym experience, we make that individual feel that they can more easily relate to those around them, and feel more supported.  We create this community and relatedness by introducing members during class and sessions, holding special events outside of the gym like laser tag, salsa dancing, move night etc, bringing up commonalities between members and creating an overall non-judgmental environment where people are free and open to be themselves.  This active role we take in community building makes the experience more fun and helps to make our members feel more connected to others around them.  This is then beneficial two fold.  1) We provide a social network for people to feel supported by.  Many people create long last friendships and connections that help support these individuals weather through tough times in their lives.  Based on Uchino’s Article, this social support can help aid in people’s biological health by acting as a stress buffer.  2) By creating a supportive community and environment, people are more likely to remain participatory in the fitness practices creating a consistent routine.  This then also helps to create long lasting physical health changes like cardiovascular endurance, muscle building, and remaining mobile. 

One piece That I think is beneficial to also recognize that Uchino brings up is that not all social support is necessarily beneficial all the time.  One of the questions we ask people when they come is “how do outside factors of your life help or hinder a healthy life style.  This can include work schedule, people in your life, environment you’re in, etc. “ While there are many who say they have supportive spouses or friends who like to do outdoor and energetic activities, others lack that kind of support and may even find themselves stuck in a group that only participates in going out drinking, and partying.  For those who are looking to break away from spending their time participating in drinking, smoking, partying, and other activities that can be harmful to one’s health,  it can be really hard to step away from if your support group only wants to participate in those activities.  For some people finding a new social support from the gym is their way to step away from these activities and change their lifestyle all together. 

Although this was not part of the study in Uchino’s paper, I wonder if having social support makes people act differently in terms of taking care of their health.  For example, I wonder if having a supportive partner and family makes an individual participate in healthier activities in order to be around more and help provide for their children and their families.  Or, if having supportive people in your life helps to see the doctors more or questions about a medical issue earlier on, and therefore help decrease medical issues and live longer. 

All in all, social support has many ways in which it affects a person’s health and those in the fitness industry have a great capacity to help people bring social support into the discussion of health and fitness.