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Public Awareness towards Healthy Lifestyle

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 International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences
Vol. 8 , No. 10, Oct. 2018, E-ISSN: 2 22 2 -6990 © 2018 HRMARS

Public Awareness towards Healthy Lifestyle

Abdul Rauf bin Ridzuan, Rizuwan Abu Karim, Najihah Hanisah Marmaya,
Noraznira Abdul Razak, Noor Khairin Nawwarah Khalid, Khairun Nizam
Muhamad Yusof
To Link this Article: http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v8-i10/4790 DOI: 10.6007/IJARBSS/v8-i10/4790

Received: 19 Sept 2018, Revised: 23 Oct 2018, Accepted: 30 Oct 2018

Published Online: 09 Nov 2018

In-Text Citation: (Ridzuan et al., 2018)

To Cite this Article: Ridzuan, A. R. bin, Karim, R. A., Marmaya, N. H., Razak, N. A., Khalid, N. K. N., & Yusof, K. N.
M. (2018). Public Awareness towards Healthy Lifestyle. International Journal of Academic Research in
Business and Social Sciences, 8(10), 927–936.

Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s)

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Public Awareness towards Healthy Lifestyle

Abdul Rauf bin Ridzuan, Rizuwan Abu Karim, Najihah Hanisah
Marmaya, Noraznira Abdul Razak, Noor Khairin Nawwarah Khalid,
Khairun Nizam Muhamad Yusof
Faculty of Communication & Media Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA Melaka, Malaysia

Abstract
This study aimed to explore the awareness of the public towards living a healthy lifestyle and it
focused on food intake, exercising and social life. This study used questionnaire as an approach to
collect the data and it involved 425 participants. This study found that people are aware on the
importance of practicing a healthy lifestyle. In addition, they also realize on the things that could
threaten their health such as misuse of drugs and alcohol consumption. Lastly, from all three factors,
social factor is the one that gives greater influence for the public to live a healthy lifestyle (M=3.25).
Keywords: Public Awareness, Healthy Lifestyle, Food, Exercise, Social

Introduction
A lot of campaigns about healthy lifestyle has been done to raise awareness among the public to live
healthy life style. Despite all of the efforts being done to encourage people to practice a healthy
lifestyle, some of them still do not follow the given advises and continue to live in an unhealthy
lifestyle. Leaving their old eating and social habits are not easy to do but nothing is impossible. There
are many ways people can do to live a healthy lifestyle. To start with, they need to be aware on the
importance of living a healthy lifestyle, monitor their food intake, have enough exercise and learn to
manage their stress properly (Anusha Thavarajah, 2016).
There are a lot of advantages from living a healthy lifestyle. One of the advantages is that it can help
to prevent people from having chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes and cancer (Morris,
2017). According to the Habjouqa (2017), an estimate of 35.8 million years of healthy life are lost due
to overweight and obesity. Thus, by leading a healthy life, it can help their body to stay in shape and
to be in a good condition.
Everyone can practice a healthy lifestyle regardless of their gender, age and wealth. Practicing a
healthy lifestyle does not require people to sign up for expensive gymnasium membership to do
exercise or to only eat expensive organic food. As mentioned before, the main key for the society to
live a healthy lifestyle is to find balance in what they eat and drink and to do exercise or other healthy
activities. Although it seems hard to adhere to a new life style, when they get used to the routine
they will find it doable.
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Literature Review
A healthy lifestyle can be understood as a way of living that lowers the risk of having serious sickness
or dying early (Atherton, 2018; Simon, 2014). Nowadays, there are many applications that can be
used to help someone to live a healthy life such as food trackers and exercise trackers (Healthy
Lifestyle, 2018). In today’s world, to live a healthy life is easy for everyone as everything is at their
fingertip. However, if they are not sure on how to start even with the help of internet and applications
in their gadgets, they can make an appointment with their doctor. By following general good health
guidelines prescribed by the doctor, they can start to live a healthier life.

 Advantages of healthy lifestyle

Leading a healthy lifestyle can help avoid people from getting serious illnesses. Healthy lifestyle
choices such as eating a prudent diet, exercising regularly, and not smoking may substantially reduce
coronary heart disease (CHD) risk or any other chronic diseases (Ahmad Taufik, 2017). For example,
the recommended daily sugar intake is not more than 10 teaspoons, or 200Kcal, and if people take
more than that, it can lead them to have 1kg of weight gain in just one-and-a-half months (Woo,
2018). When people start to exercise, it will increase their insulin sensitivity and improve their blood
glucose control. This is important especially to those with diabetes disease and obesity.
Apart from that, exercises can also help to lower their blood pressure. When people start to
exercise regularly, it can help them to release their stress level and to strengthen to their body
immunity. According to Harvard Medical School (2017), every part of a person’s body including his or
her immune system functions better when it is being protected from environmental assaults and
bolstered by healthy living strategies. The combination of healthy lifestyle can help to lower risk of
coronary heart disease, diabetes, and total cardiovascular disease. Last but not least, living a healthy
lifestyle can also help people to lose weight and to improve their overall wellbeing (Ahmad Taufik,
2018).

 Ways to have a healthy lifestyle

People must develop a healthy lifestyle to have a longer and healthier life. Healthy living will make
them to be fit, energetic and reduce risk from getting chronic diseases. There are several tips for
healthy living such as consume a well-balanced and healthy food, do exercise daily and have adequate
sleep. Furthermore, people should manage their stress in positive ways such as by listening to music,
exercise and eat nutritious food (Reese, 2016) instead of by smoking or drinking alcohol as it can
affect the major organ systems in their body (Chia, 2017).

 Healthy eating
The most important step for a person to have a healthy lifestyle is by taking care of his or her food
intake. According to Davis and Stoppler (2018), a person must eat three meals a day which are
breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and he or she must control the size of the meal every time he or she
wants to eat. The authors further state that people should avoid eating in a larger portion for dinner.
Besides, they suggest that people should consume more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fat-free
or low-fat products. People should also choose lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts as it
can decrease the cholesterol level and saturated fat in their body. Next, it is also important to
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consume products that have low amounts of saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, salt (sodium), and
added sugars (Davis & Stoppler, 2018). To make it easier, people can just follow the food pyramid
diet as prescribed by their doctor.

 Exercise regularly
Another major contributor to a healthy lifestyle is to do physical activity or exercise (Davis & Stoppler,
2018). Exercises such as swimming, yoga, pilates, jogging, aerobics and others are good for the body
and mind. People who are not used to exercise should remember to stretch all of their body parts
before they do intense physical activities so they will not get hurt during the activity. It is also
advisable to have breakfast before exercising so that their body has ample energy to work out. It is
suggested that a person can start exercise from 30 to 60 minutes for 3 times a week to live healthily
(Davis & Stoppler, 2018). People should make time and motivate themselves to exercise as it can help
them to relax and ease their mind.
Moreover, exercises can help to improve a person’s body strength, balance and flexibility. It can
also help to increase self-esteem and self-confidence, decrease stress and anxiety, enhance mood,
and improve general mental health (Robinson, Segal & Smith, 2018). It can also help control weight
gain and lose fat. Most importantly, regular exercise can help people to reduce the risks of having
coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure (Atherton, 2018; Ahmad
Taufik, 2017).

 Get enough sleep

Getting enough sleep is very important to all age and for example, most adults need 7 to 8 hours of
deep sleep in order to function optimally and to maintain a healthy lifestyle (Robinson, Segal & Smith,
2018). In addition to that, getting enough sleep has been strongly linked to proper immune system
functioning and also cardiovascular health (Woo, 2018). As stated by Sparacino (2018), getting
enough sleep is an important part of living a healthy lifestyle as it can help to ease their physical body
and mental conditions. When a person gets enough sleep, it can strengthen and improves his or her
memory and enables him or her to handle stress and pressure better. Lastly, the author also states if
a person only manages to get six hours or less sleep, it will increase the risk of having heart attack.
Besides from sleeping at night, taking a nap during the day is also good for a person’s body. People
should be more aware on the importance of having a good sleep as it can have a positive impact on
their life.

 Avoid stress
According to Reese (2016), stress is part of life and it is unavoidable. As people grow older, they tend
to experience new types of stress as they will have more responsibility such as their job or they have
family members to look after. However, it does not mean that they should ignore the stress. When
people do not deal with their stress properly, it can lead them to have serious physical and mental
health problems. It is also being said that chronic stress can increase the risk of getting heart disease,
cancer, and digestive problems, and it can even affect a person’s memory (Reese, 2016). There are
several ways suggested by the author to cope with stress such as by listening to music, dance, go for

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a walk, exercise, sleep or watch television. When people able to manage their stress, it can help them
to live longer.

 Stop smoking
People should quit smoking because a smoke-free lifestyle will help to improve their health. When a
person quit smoking, it can decrease the risk of getting lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, and
respiratory diseases (Gordon, 2017). Besides, by quitting from smoking he or she can help others such
as their unborn baby, children and other family members from being passive smokers. As stated by
Gordon (2017), there are several ways to stop smoking. First, smokers can start by decreasing the
quantity of smoking and stop buying cartons of cigarettes. Next, they should try to avoid the
temptation to smoke or even getting close to a person who is currently smoking. Moreover, the
author also suggests that smokers can also try to distract themselves from smoking by doing activities
such as reading, cleaning, jogging, swimming and many more. Lastly, they can also buy nicotine gum
or nicotine cigarette filter to help them to quit smoking.

 Avoid alcohol
Another step to live a healthy lifestyle is by not consuming alcohol because it can lead a person to
get diseases like stroke, high blood pressure, cancers and organ failures (Ducharme, 2018).
Furthermore, instead of being a sober, they can enjoy their daily life and able to remember what they
had done before. There are several tips to avoid from consuming alcohol which are first, people must
avoid their temptations on drinking or at least reduce drinking gradually in time and second they can
also avoid from going to the parties or social gatherings where alcohol will be served (Ducharme,
2018). By doing this, they can live a healthier lifestyle.

Research Methodology
Explanatory research was used in this research. According to Kowalczyk (2014), explanatory research
can be described as an attempt to connect ideas to understand cause and effect. This means that the
researchers want to describe what is happening. Explanatory research looks at how things come
together and interact (Abdul Rauf Ridzuan, 2015). The researchers used Google form to create the
survey. After that, the researchers shared the link to the participants to gather the data and all of the
participants’ responses being gathered in an online spreadsheet. The first section of the survey
welcomes participants to the survey followed by an instruction that all participants need to answer
every one of the inquiries. The length of time for answering this survey is between 3-5 minutes per
participant. The purpose of doing this survey is to analyse the public’s opinion towards healthy
lifestyle.

Results and Discussion

Based on the data from Table 1 below, it shows that respondents take a great care of their water
intake (M=3.3.6). According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2017), when people
substitute soda drinks with plain water and reduce caloric intake, it can improve their health and
decrease their body weight. Dehydration, kidney stone disease and constipation can be avoided
when people drink enough water and when they do this regularly, their body will be healthier and it
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will also make them to be in a good mood (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017).
Moreover, this study found that participants are generally aware on what they consume (M=3.05),
they value the importance of having breakfast (M=3.23), control their food portion size (M=2.69) and
eat 3 times a day (M=2.84). However, some participants do not follow the food pyramid when they
consume their food (M=2.44).

Food Factors Mean

I care what I eat 3.05

I consume my food intake according to the 2.44
food pyramid

I control my meal portion size 2.69

Breakfast is important 3.23

8 glasses of plain water are important 3.36

I eat 3 times a day 2.84

Overall mean 2.93
Table 1: Food factor

Table 2 below shows factors of exercising, and from the data, it can be concluded that most
participants like to exercise (M=2.91). Exercising can lead them to have a good mental health as it
will reduce the risk of being depressed and help them to deal with current stress. Furthermore, it lets
people to control their body and avoid from getting obese (“Benefits of Exercise”, n.d.). Next,
researchers also found that the participants know the fact that exercise is important (M=3.29). They
also agree that one of the reasons they exercise is to be more fit and healthy (M=3.17). It is also
reported that the participants exercise regularly (M=2.55). Other than that, the researchers found
that when they exercise, they tend to do it with someone (M=2.85). Lastly, many participants
reported that they are being influenced to exercise because of the supports they get from their
surroundings such as from their friends and families.

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Exercise Factors Mean

I like exercising 2.91

I exercise regularly 2.55

I like exercising with company 2.85

I exercise due to the influence from my 2.83

surroundings

I exercise in order to be fit and healthy 3.17

I am aware of the importance of exercising 3.29

Overall mean 2.93

Table 2: Exercise factor
Based on the data from table 3, it is found that that almost all participants are aware that drugs are
dangerous to their health (M=3.62). Next, many participants do not smoke (M=3.27). From the
findings, it seems that society advise people around them to avoid smoking (M=3.17). Other than
that, most participants do not consume alcohol (M=3.41). Lastly, many participants encourage their
family members to practice a healthy lifestyle (M=3.13) but only some participants tend to encourage
their family members to exercise with them (M=2.87).

Social Factors Mean

I do not practice smoking 3.27

I advise my friend to not smoke 3.17

I do not consume alcohol 3.41

I know that drugs are dangerous for health 3.62

I encourage my family members to exercise 2.87

with me

I encourage my family members to practice 3.13

a healthy lifestyle

Overall mean 3.25

Table 3: Social factor
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Conclusion
All of the tables in the results and discussion section present the ways to live a healthy lifestyle
through food factor, exercise factor and social factor. This study suggests that social factor is the main
reason that influences people to lead a healthy lifestyle (M=3.25). In addition, this study also shows
that the level of awareness among society towards living a healthy lifestyle has increased as most of
the participants take a good care of their health. The results from this research also has proven the
fact that it is vital to know the importance of living a healthy lifestyle because it can shape people’s
awareness to start practicing a healthy living. As suggested by Davis and Stoppler (2018), by
consuming healthy meals, exercise regularly and develop a healthy social habits, it can improve
people’s physical and mental health. To conclude, although there are many different types of illnesses
currently encountered, the majority of Malaysians in Malaysia are mostly practicing healthy lifestyles
and understanding the importance of healthy living.

Acknowledgement
Researchers would like to say thank you to Deputy Rector of Research in UiTM Cawangan Melaka,
Associate Prof Dr Shafinar Ismail and Melina Mahpuz, Deputy Dean of Research and Industry Linkage
from Faculty of Communication & Media Studies, UiTM Shah Alam for their encouragement and
motivation to do this research.

Corresponding Author
Abdul Rauf Ridzuan (PhD), Faculty of Communication & Media Studies, UiTM Cawangan Melaka,
Malaysia. Email: [email protected]

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