Why is a healthy lifestyle important?

We all want to live a long, happy, healthy life with an abundance of energy and vitality, having the ability to perform well both mentally and physically with emotional balance and free from disease and disorders. One may ask, why is a healthy lifestyle important and how can we accomplish a healthy lifestyle with all the bad temptations of today? To achieve this we need to strive for peak health through a Healthy Lifestyle.

Leading a healthy lifestyle is one of the best decisions you will ever make, one which will impact on all aspects of your life - physical, mental, and emotional. The issue of healthy lifestyles is an important one. A healthy lifestyle is a valuable resource for reducing the incidence and impact of health problems, enabling you better to cope with life stressors, as well as improving your quality of life.

Many health problems can be prevented or at least their occurrence postponed by having a healthy lifestyle. Many health issues are addressed with exercise, nutrition, stress management and other healthy lifestyle practices.

Let me start here by trying to define lifestyle. Definition: ‘A way of life or style of living that reflects the attitudes and values of a person or group’.

Everyone knows that eating a healthy balanced diet, exercising regularly and coping with stress are of
benefit to the body and mind, and are habits necessary for a healthy lifestyle.

Resource from:

Healthy Lifestyle Living, By Larry Lewis, (2012) 'Why is healthy lifestyle important?' [online,blog] Available from: https://www.healthylifestylesliving.com/health/healthy-lifestyle/why-is-a-healthy-lifestyle-important/ [Access date 27/11/2015]

Why is it important to have a healthy lifestyle?

Why should I lose weight?

Maintaining a healthy weight is essential to good health. Obesity is associated with many illnesses and shortens life expectancy.  Being overweight can lead to higher risks of:

• diabetes
• high blood pressure
• breathlessness
• coronary heart disease
• osteoarthritis in the knees
• a range of cancers
• negative effects on wellbeing and self esteem.

By losing weight, your risk of developing any of these problems is greatly reduced and your self esteem and confidence is increased!

 

Why should I quit smoking?

There are many health benefits to quitting smoking, these include:

•  You will reduce your risk of developing illness, disability or death caused by cancer, heart or lung disease.
• You will improve your breathing and general fitness.
• You will improve your fertility levels and  your chance of a healthy pregnancy.
• You will reduce the chance of your children suffering from bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma attacks, meningitis and ear infections.
• You will protect the health of those around you by not exposing them to second hand smoke.

Quitting smoking will also improve your lifestyle by:

• Saving you money - as much as several hundred pounds a month if you are a heavy smoker.
• The appearance of your skin and teeth will improve.
• You will no longer smell of stale tobacco.

 

Why should I drink less?

Regularly drinking above recommended daily limits, risks damaging your health in the following ways:

• You may be affected by liver problems, reduced fertility, high blood pressure, increased risk of various cancers and heart attack.
• Drinking too much could lead to impaired judgement, slurring of speech, a tendancy to violent behaviour and short term memory loss.
• Alcohol irritates the stomach so can cause sickness, nausea and diarrhoea.
• Alcohol has a dehydrating effect which is the main reason for hangovers.

Why should I do more exercise?

• Keeping active reduces the risk of getting major chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease, diabetes or high blood pressure
• Keeping active helps you to maintain a healthy weight
• It helps to maintain healthy bones, muscles and joints.
• It is a great way to reduce stress levels by making you feel more energetic and helping you sleep better.
• Physical activity Increases your confidence and self esteem and is a great way to have fun and meet new people.

Why should I eat healthily?

When it comes to a healthy diet, balance is the key to getting it right.  This means eating a wide variety of foods in the right proportions.

All the food we eat can be divided into 5 groups:

• Fruit and vegetables - it is advised to eat 5 different portions of fruit and vegetables per day, try and eat a rainbow of colours to get your vital sources of vitamins and minerals. 
• Starchy foods - These foods such as bread, pasta, cereals, potatoes and rice are your main source of energy giving you fuel for the day.  These should make up 1/3 of your daily diet.
• Meat, fish, eggs and beans provide us with protein which is needed for growth and repair.
• Milk and dairy foods - such as cheese and yoghurt provide us with calcium which helps our bones grow strong.
• Fat and sugar - It is still important to have some fat in our diet to help our body function properly.  We need to try and reduce 'bad'  fats such as cakes, butters, biscuits and pastries as too much of these foods can increase your risk of heart disease and weight gain.  That is why getting the right proportion is key!

Resource from:

Leeds let's change, 'Why is it important to have a healthy lifestyle?' [online] Available from: http://www.leedsletschange.co.uk/pages/why-is-it-important-to-have-a-healthy-lifestyle [Access date 27/11/2015]

Main functions in my pavilion

Pavilion - Functions

Function 1 - Test/check
Quick health check -> Different tests -> Height & Weight check (BMI) -> Blood pressure -> Quick check of sugar level in blood.

Function 2 - Help
After all tests -> Consultation with doctor -> Helping out with problem -> Advice -> Diet, list of exercise.

(Helping people with different healthy issues)

Function 3 - Educate
Information about healthy food/healthy lifestyle -> What is healthy food, where we can buy it -> what healthy lifestyle is -> How healthy lifestyle affect us?/benefits (Why should we chose to live in a healthy way) ->Where you can find further help

(Educate people with diabetes or food intolerance how to create daily diet and manage their life)

Function 4 - Relax & Be healthy
Space for relaxation -> After or before visiting our pavilion -> Relax in pleasant environment that we created for people -> Relax is very important part of a healthy lifestyle

Benefits of healthy lifestyle
• Exercising - Control weight
• Improves mood
• Combats diseases
• Boots energy
• Improves longevity
• Good mental health


All functions of this pavilion are made to introduce to people the importance of healthy lifestyle. Those functions are made to convince people and explain them step by step what healthy lifestyle is, but also to show and explain to them how bad behaviours /unhealthy lifestyle can affects our body and mind.
There are lost of different diseases and health conditions that are caused by unhealthy lifestyle. Many people don't know that our whole body and mind can suffer from our bad decisions and habits.

About ..Healthy Pavilion

Go -> Check -> Educate -> Relax -> Be Healthy

Promoting healthy lifestyle through pavilion. The 'Green Pavilion' will be a place where everyone are welcome to find out what they need about healthy lifestyle but also about their health.

What functions this pavilion will have?

It is not about reading some leaflets based on healthy lifestyle, this pavilion will provide professional health care, test and consultation with different range of doctors (dieticians but also people that are doing internship in hospitals).

The purpose is to provide quick and effective meeting (for free) that could help people to start healthy lifestyle. They can come straight from the street, without waiting in surgeries or hospitals.  How?

What kind of test this pavilion will provide? How this will work?

- Blood pressure

- BMI (High and weigh check)

- Diabetes check (Blood sugar test)

- Consultation

Customers will be taking through couple of different, but quick and very simple test which the results of them will be immediately. After having the results there will be a consultation with doctor.

 Everyone from our customers will be given quick note written specially for them, about food and diet,(what they should and shouldn't eat). Information leaflet about healthy eating and how easy  is to start to life more healthy. Whatever problem customers will have they will be given a list of exercise which they should do as a part of healthy lifestyle, and also links and contact numbers and address where they can get more help if they need it.

Different people different problems:

- Obesity

- Diabetes
- Heart diseases 

- Food intolerance

- Overall poor well-being

- Stress

Food intolerance is very complicated and most of people just don't know what they can eat and what don't, and in many cases lots of people even don't know that they have food intolerance. It is very hard to remember what is good and what isn't and it is very hard to compose some rational diet by itself.

That's why pavilion provide consultation with doctor, which will fully explain everyone the situation that they are in.

 The obesity is a very big problem in the UK, also as heart disease and poor well-being which can end up with depression. Lots of health problems are caused because of bad living, lack of natural environment, hours at work, lack of exercising and not caring about what we eat, how and when.

This pavilion will try to educate and convince people about healthy food and healthy lifestyle and show how easy it is. Also and mainly it will try to  help the customers to understand  everything about their health conditions.  

In this pavilion will be a space where people can just simply sit and relax as this is very important part of the healthy lifestyle, it is also important for our body but also for our mental health.

Rethink my design idea

I redevelop my first idea because the purpose was still not very specific and clear. I use the whole idea nr 1, like just one function in my second idea. I didn't change the whole thing I just combine my first thoughts and design with new ones. Previous researches just give me an idea what I can do and inspiration of how my pavilion can look like. But also an inspiration of creating very fresh and unique pavilion that will bring lots of benefits to others.

So..

what I want from the beginning from my project is to design this for people and make a design that will have benefits for them. I was thinking then about how people are live now days and how I am living. Lots of stress, hours in front of the screens at work, school, and then at home, sitting lifestyle, bad eating, no exercising, living in urban core with lack of nature. This behaviours and choices have a very bad impact on our health and our well being.

At the start of the unit I was hardly stick with nature theme, and to design installation/pavilion/structure that will bring nature to the urban core and will provide place for people to relax. 

I focused my research on connecting people with nature, and what benefits it have, I found out that the nature have big impact on us and our life's, and that it is a important part of our healthy lifestyle. So after this I was think more about my project and about the purpose of it because it was still a bit unclear. 

And this lead me to do more specified research, about healthy lifestyle, how it affect us, and what actually healthy lifestyle mean.

I decided that my design will be about promoting healthy lifestyle and helping people to start to live that way. It will be about to educate people and fully explain to them what the healthy lifestyle is and why people should chose this way of living. It will also have some green place for people to rest and relax as my previous researches shows that being around nature/greenery/pleasant surrounding is very good for our physical and mental health. 

Gathering Pavilion

During the 2014 summer semester, the College of DuPage Architecture Department offered its first ever Design +Build summer studio. This course became a hands-on, experiential learning opportunity for our students to explore space and the built environment through the design and construction of a creative, spatially innovative, temporary structure.

Designed and built by 16 students, this temporary gathering pavilion is located on the COD main campus adjacent to the west campus pond. This project allowed our students to have a first-hand experience designing, and then building a structure. The necessity of building a design forced students to consider both the poetic and the tectonic simultaneously, adding a richness to the design conversation.

Conceptually, the gathering pavilion is an exploration of "framing" – framing space, framing views, and framing experience. The design is a series of five sectional bays, or frames, which are positioned adjacent to one another. While all of these sections are based on a consistent module, each frame varies in height, alignment, and seating placement. These five frames collectively create a space that allows for students to gather and interact with each other.

Resource from:

ArchiDose, 2014. A Daily Dose of Architecture/Gathering Pavilion. [online] Available from: http://archidose.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/gathering-pavilion.html [Access date 07/12/2015]

Living Pavilion

“Living Pavilion” is a low‐tech, zero‐impact structure that employs reclaimed milk crates as the framework for growing a planted “green wall” surface. The pavilion’s construction is simple and modular, relying on common materials such as heavy‐duty packaging straps and weather‐treated wood for its assembly. Erected in the courtyard of Liggett Hall for Governors Island’s summer season, the pavilion will provide refuge from the heat in a shaded environment kept cool by the evaporation from its planted surfaces. As the pavilion’s vaulted form meets the ground, it unfolds into a mat of crates planted with crops that can be harvested and distributed to the community. At the end of the season, its modular design will allow easy disassembly and distribution to the New York area for use in homes, public places, and community gardens.

The selection of “Living Pavilion” is the result of an international design competition to design and build a pavilion as a central, temporary gathering place on Governors Island. This competition is unique in that it asked designers to consider the full lifecycle of their proposals. With as little environmental impact as possible, considerations included the sourcing, materials, placement, de‐installation, and the future of the pavilion once the summer has ended.

Resource from:

Open Buildings, 2010. Living Pavilion. [online] Available from: http://openbuildings.com/buildings/living-pavilion-profile-2114# [Access date 07/12/2015]