Preface
Welcome to Health Now: An Integrative Approach to Personal Health, published by FlatWorld, which is dedicated to producing high-quality textbooks at an affordable cost. Knowledge of personal health has a value that lasts a lifetime. This book will help students identify lifestyle changes that promote their health and wellness and prevent disease. Students will learn how personal habits ripple outward, affecting them, those they love and work with, and, ultimately, the local and global environment.
By book’s end, students will possess what medical professionals call health literacy. Not only will they have a firm grasp of health basics, but when presented with unfamiliar medical information or dubious health claims, they’ll be able to consult credible sources for answers. Students will know how to communicate with their health-care practitioner and make informed decisions.
Organization
The book’s overall organization mirrors that of competing books. However, Health Now leads with information on the ways of practicing medicine: conventional, holistic, complementary, and integrative. The last, integrative medicine, represents the brave new world of health care. It shifts the focus from treating disease to keeping patients healthy, addresses all aspects of an individual’s health (not just physical function), and considers all therapies with evidence of effectiveness and safety. Whereas competing texts relegate information about complementary medicine to a single chapter, Health Now provides information on relevant, evidence-based therapies throughout the book.
In keeping with the integrative model, the book emphasizes strategies to optimize health and avoid disease. Most older Americans die of chronic and largely preventable diseases. The seeds of these illnesses are planted early. For that reason, the book repeatedly presents modifiable risk factors. While there isn’t a separate chapter on aging, ideas on how to age well appear throughout the text.
Chapter Summaries
The book begins with an overview of health and wellness, proceeds through the pillars of good health, moves to the most common illnesses facing Americans, and concludes with the interrelationship between personal and environmental health.
Here are chapter overviews:
Chapter 1 “Health for Life” defines health and wellness, explores health trends and unmet challenges at home and abroad, and provides skills for positive behavior change.
Chapter 2 “Conventional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine” examines the types of health care: conventional, alternative, complementary, holistic, and integrative.
Chapter 3 “Stress: Keeping Your Balance in a Hectic World ” explains the stress response, discusses the damaging effects of long-term stress, and reviews methods of managing stress.
Chapter 4 “Sleep” reviews the stages of sleep, sleep needs through the life cycle, the perils of sleep deprivation, sleep disorders, and ways to improve sleep.
Chapter 5 “Mental Health” examines psychological health: factors that promote it, factors that erode it, signs of psychological disorders, and treatment options.
Chapter 6 “Social and Gender Health” explores the value of healthy relationships, types of relationships, the effects of sex and gender on health, and skills for improving social health.
Chapter 7 “Sexual and Reproductive Health” focuses on sexual and reproductive health with an emphasis on how to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks associated with intimate sexual relationships. It provides information on reproductive options, sexually transmitted infections, and common reproductive system conditions in all genders.
Chapter 8 “Nutrition: Eating Right for Life” teaches nutrition basics, recommendations on healthy eating, dietary challenges, and contemporary trends in the food industry.
Chapter 9 “Physical Fitness” discusses the damaging effects of sedentary lifestyles, the benefits of regular exercise, government activity guidelines, types of exercise, tips for working physical activity into daily life, and sports safety.
Chapter 10 “Body Composition and Body Image” reviews body weight and body composition, the current crisis in overweight and obesity in the United States and the world, causes and consequences of obesity, strategies for achieving and maintaining healthy body weight, and common eating disorders.
Chapter 11 “Substance Use Disorders and Addictive Behaviors” explores the reasons people use and abuse addictive substances, the health effects of commonly used substances, and the tools that help people quit.
Chapter 12 “Personal Safety” covers unintentional injuries (accidents) and intentional injuries (violence), with an emphasis on personal and community strategies to reduce accidents and violence.
Chapter 13 “Immune System Health” explains basic immune system function, factors that undermine and support immune system health, disorders of this system, and strategies for preventing infection. It also reviews the types of disease-causing microorganisms, the common infections affecting the major bodily systems, warning signs of serious infections, preventive strategies, and treatment options.
Chapter 14 “Preventing Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease” presents important facts about diabetes mellitus and the major cardiovascular diseases, including statistics, causes, signs and symptoms, risk factors, protective factors, and management.
Chapter 15 “Cancer: Causes, Prevention, and Treatment” explains cancer, common types of cancer, risk factors, protective factors, screening and diagnostic tests, and treatment approaches.
Chapter 16 “Environmental Health” investigates the complex interrelationship among personal and environmental health, pollution, water management, and the ways our environment affects our health.
Features
While this book can serve as an up-to-date resource for anyone interested in health, it has unique advantages for students and instructors. Its conversational style makes medical information accessible. Each chapter contains several staple and innovative features as follows:
Historical overview: Many chapters begin with a summary of historical milestones culminating in our current understanding of health.
Learning objectives by section: Instead of a long list of learning objectives at the beginning of the chapter, we divide the learning objectives by section and offer exercises and key terms for every section in the book. Students can make sure they understand key concepts before moving to the next section. Instructors can readily reorganize, delete, and modify sections within chapters to make the book their own.
Video and audio clips: Book chapters contain videos from YouTube and health organizations that help cement or augment many of the concepts.
Tips on staying healthy: Whenever appropriate, chapters contain self-assessments, skills for making positive behavioral changes, preventive measures, appropriate home management of minor illnesses, guidelines for contacting a medical professional, and information on research-backed treatments.
Timely research: Chapters contain highlights from cutting-edge studies. Endnote citations provide students and faculty the means to read more about the research.
Customizable features: FlatWorld’s digital-first platform lets educators take control and personalize their textbooks to match their learning objectives and, ultimately, increase student success.
I hope you will enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed writing it for instructors, professors, and students.
Best wishes for a great semester or quarter!
Jennifer Frediani, PhD, RD, ACSM-CES
This book seeks to increase your knowledge about personal health. To the best of our knowledge, the information provided is accurate, as of the time of publication. Please do not use this book as a substitute for professional medical care or advice. If you have medical concerns or questions, always seek guidance from a health-care professional. The author and publisher are not responsible for the accuracy of any content added by faculty.
What’s New in Version 4.0?
The language we use to talk about health has drastically changed over the last five years. In the newest version of Health Now 4.0, we have integrated discussions about gender and health from sexual health to mental health to considering how chronic diseases may be affected by hormone therapy. We also updated the outdated binary language throughout the book. The other big change is around the environment and planetary health. We have changed this to reflect more on how climate change and the environment can affect human health. These changes will be crucial for student learning and classroom discussions on how current events affect health.
Some important changes in this update include:
Chapter 2 “Conventional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine”: New section on cupping and the addition of all 5 CAM categories
Chapter 3 “Stress: Keeping Your Balance in a Hectic World ”: Toned down biology lesson and updated the technology section in Chapter 3, Section 1 “Overview of the Stress Response”
Chapter 5 “Mental Health”: Updated Chapter 5, Section 1 “Mental Health and Mental Well-Being” to explain the difference between mental health and well-being, updated to reflect the substantial world events that have affected mental health in the last few years, including the pandemic, mass shootings, race-related killings by police, and social isolation
Chapter 6 “Social and Gender Health”: Complete overhaul of this chapter, adding transgender community to the conversation and updating binary language
Chapter 7 “Sexual and Reproductive Health”: Added new section on transgender sexual health, added consent discussion
Chapter 8 “Nutrition: Eating Right for Life”: Added eating disorder section, information on inflammation, more weight neutral language, deleted trans fat references, focused more on positive recommendations than negative and restriction, added more positive aspects of the food industry with innovation in other countries, cut organic food section and replaced with a discussion on access of fresh food, and added gluten intolerance
Chapter 9 “Physical Fitness”: Added mental health as a reason to exercise, added more inclusive (body size) images, added ultra sports and updated concussion information
Chapter 10 “Body Composition and Body Image”: More focus on body image and body composition, deleted focus on weight loss, added orthorexia, added other ways someone can have obesity, genetics, systemic racism, stress, added Chapter 10, Section 3.3 “Health at Every Size®” as a method to treat obesity
Chapter 11 “Substance Use Disorders and Addictive Behaviors”: New DSM-5 criteria, added benefits of CBD and cannabis, added MDMA as a treatment option for psychotic disorders
Chapter 12 “Personal Safety”: Added more LGBTQIA+ statistics and section on human trafficking (Chapter 12, Section 2 “Intentional Injuries”)
Chapter 13 “Immune System Health”: Combined Chapters 13 and 14 and added information on the microbiome, inflammation, and antibiotic resistance
Chapter 14 “Preventing Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease”: Added semaglutide discussion, redid the CVD section to match DM section
Chapter 15 “Cancer: Causes, Prevention, and Treatment”: Focused more on the most prevalent cancers (breast, prostate, lung, colorectal, and skin)
Chapter 16 “Environmental Health”: Added new sections on environmental factors that affect human health (air quality, effect of pandemic lockdown, Flint water crisis); climate change and health (Zika, climate change effects on mosquito borne diseases, mental health and climate change with a section on Indigenous peoples); and emerging environmental health challenges, which include food insecurity, electronic waste, and environmental justice
Supplements
Health Now is accompanied by a robust supplements program that augments and enriches both the teaching and student learning experiences. The author personally prepared all of the supplements to ensure accuracy and to ensure full alignment with the book’s narrative. Faculty should contact their FlatWorld sales representative or FlatWorld support at support@flatworld.com for more information or to obtain access to the supplements upon adoption.
Sample Syllabi
Sample syllabi based on either 10-week or 15-week terms provide useful templates that help new adopters transition from their current course textbook to Health Now. Faculty can download the syllabi from the FlatWorld website or they can be obtained by contacting your local FlatWorld representative or FlatWorld support (support@flatworld.com).
Instructor’s Manual
The Instructor’s Manual (IM) includes Learning Objectives, Key Takeaways, and an outline for each chapter including an overview of all key terms and definitions. The IM also features possible responses to discussion questions which encourage students to more deeply engage with course material.
PowerPoint Slides
PowerPoint Slides organized by chapter include a concise and thorough outline, a list of Learning Objectives, and figures and tables contained in the text. These slides work well for both face-to-face and online learning environments, enliven lectures, and stimulate class discussions. Adopters can use the slides as composed to support lectures or customize and build upon them to suit their particular teaching goals.
Test Item File
The Test Item File (TIF) includes more than fifty questions per chapter in true/false, multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, and essay-question formats. All answers are provided, including possible responses to the essay questions. The items have been written specifically to reinforce the major topics covered in each chapter and to align with FlatWorld Homework and in-text quiz items. The Test Item File questions are also available in pre-formatted form for easy export into popular learning management systems such as Canvas or Blackboard.
Test Generator—Powered by Cognero
FlatWorld is pleased to provide a computer-generated test program powered by the leading assessment provider Cognero to assist instructors with selecting, randomizing, formatting, loading online, or printing exams. Please contact your local FlatWorld representative or FlatWorld support (support@flatworld.com) for more information or to request the program.
FlatWorld Homework
FlatWorld Homework is provided in an easy-to-use interface. Multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, matching, and image association question types are available for use and are all auto-gradable. Students who utilize the homework questions should see their performance improve on examinations that are given using the Test Item File questions that accompany this book.
Online Quizzes and Flashcards
Autograded Quiz questions and Flashcards for student self-evaluation are organized by chapter and section and embedded in the online version of the book. Students can use the Quizzes and Flashcards to test their comprehension by section as they read and learn, once they have completed a chapter, or for test review.