13.3 Influences on Health Behaviors
Key Takeaways
- Family, peers, culture, media, technology, and other factors all shape a child's health behaviors, sometimes in competing directions.
- Media literacy helps students analyze food advertisements, body image messages, and screen-time habits critically rather than passively.
- Peer pressure can be positive (encouraging activity) or negative (encouraging risky behavior); refusal skills are teachable.
- Cultural and family health history influence diet, activity, and risk for noncommunicable disease; teachers present differences without judgment.
- Decision-making models and advocacy skills empower students to make healthful choices and speak up for personal, family, and community wellness.
The Six Influence Categories
Children's health behaviors are shaped by overlapping influences. The National Health Education Standards group these into six categories that teachers should be able to analyze with students.
| Influence | How It Shapes Health Behaviors | Classroom Example |
|---|---|---|
| Family | Models meals, activity, sleep, and care-seeking behaviors; passes on values and health history | A child who sees parents exercising daily is more likely to value activity |
| Peers | Creates social norms through acceptance, teasing, and shared activities | Classmates encouraging a shy student to join a soccer game |
| Culture | Defines acceptable foods, body image norms, traditions, and remedies | A family observing Ramadan adjusts daytime eating during a school month |
| Media | Advertises food and body ideals; normalizes behaviors through characters | Cereal commercials during cartoons often promote high-sugar products |
| Technology | Drives screen time, sedentary behavior, and exposure to online content | A student who spends four hours on a tablet may sleep less |
| Other factors | Includes school environment, community, religion, healthcare access, and genetics | A walkable neighborhood supports more outdoor play |
Media Literacy
Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media. In elementary health, it has three priority applications.
1. Analyzing food advertisements. Students learn that ads are designed to persuade, not inform. A teacher might show a cereal commercial and ask: "Who made this? What do they want you to do? What's left out?" Students compare the ad's claims to the nutrition label.
2. Body image messages. Media often presents narrow body ideals. Teachers help students recognize that healthy bodies come in many shapes and that worth is not tied to appearance. Upper-grade lessons connect this to self-esteem and eating-disorder prevention.
3. Screen time. The AAP recommends consistent limits: no screens under 18 months (except video chatting), one hour of high-quality programming for ages 2-5, and consistent limits for older children. Excessive screen time is linked to poor sleep, lower physical activity, and attention problems.
Peer Pressure: Positive and Negative
Peer pressure is influence from people of similar age or status. It can be positive ("Let's all try the new vegetable at lunch") or negative ("Skip recess and look at this video instead"). Teachers help students distinguish the two and practice refusal skills — clear "no" statements, changing the subject, walking away, or suggesting an alternative. Role-play scenarios are a developmentally appropriate P-5 strategy.
Cultural Influences on Diet and Activity
Cultural background shapes food choices, eating rituals, physical activity preferences, and views of body size. A teacher presenting nutrition must avoid implying one cultural diet is superior. Instead, students analyze traditional dishes using MyPlate proportions, identifying how a tortilla-and-bean meal or a stir-fry with tofu already meets multiple groups. Activity traditions vary too: some cultures emphasize team sports, others individual movement such as dance or martial arts.
Family Health History
A family health history records diseases and conditions that run in a family. It helps identify risk for conditions like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers. Upper elementary students can begin to understand that family history is one influence among many — not destiny — and that healthy behaviors can reduce risk. Teachers handle this topic sensitively because some students live with ill family members or in adoptive or foster placements with incomplete histories.
Internet and Social Media Safety
Children increasingly access health information online. Teachers help them evaluate sources: a hospital or government site (.gov) is more reliable than a random social media post. They also teach digital safety: not sharing personal information, telling a trusted adult about messages that feel uncomfortable, and recognizing that online challenges may be dangerous. Cyberbullying is addressed as both a safety and a mental-health issue.
Substance Abuse Prevention
Georgia's health standards include age-appropriate substance abuse prevention. In P-2, this means identifying trusted adults and understanding that medicines are given only by a trusted adult. In 3-5, students learn about tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs, their effects on the body, and refusal skills. Vaping is explicitly addressed because of rising youth use. Instruction emphasizes short-term effects on the developing brain and lungs rather than scare tactics, which research shows are less effective.
Decision-Making Models
A common elementary decision-making model has six steps:
- Identify the decision — "Should I try a vape at the bus stop?"
- List options — try it, say no and walk away, tell an adult.
- Weigh consequences — health effects, trouble, peer reaction.
- Decide — choose the safest option.
- Act — say no and walk away.
- Reflect — did the choice protect health and relationships?
Advocating for Personal, Family, and Community Health
Advocacy moves a student from healthy choice-maker to health leader. Examples include a fourth grader asking the cafeteria to add a meatless option, a family walking together after dinner, and a class writing to a council member about a neighborhood sidewalk. Teachers make advocacy visible by celebrating student-led wellness projects and by connecting classroom learning to school and community initiatives.
Which scenario best illustrates the influence of media on a child's health behavior?
A fifth-grade student faces pressure to skip recess and watch a video on a classmate's phone. Which teacher action best supports refusal skills?