Donatelle Presentation on Chapter 15: Environmental Health

Finding the Right Balance

In chapter 15 of her text, Health: The Basics, Donatelle offers a discussion on the implications of the natural environment to our health as individuals and as a species. The evaluation by Donatelle reveals that we share a directly reciprocal relationship with our environment and that the balance we strike in treating it with respect will have a direct consequence to our own longevity. As the reader, we are asked to examine the aspects of our lives which contribute positively to the environment and those which can negatively impact it. Consequently, we can make changes in our lifestyle choices to improve the tilt of this balance toward those activities which are environmentally neutral or beneficial. For instance, we may be inclined to conduct a cost benefit analysis of shopping for certain vegetables vs. maintaining a personal vegetable garden. While it may not be feasible to reduce our dependency altogether or grocery store supply chains and large farming operations, here we can find the right balance between this dependency and some level of healthful autonomy.

Slide 2: Creating Healthy and Caring Relationships

A recurring theme of the Donatelle text is the clear connection between achieving environmental sustainability and fostering a strong sense of community. Indeed, much achievement in the area of conservation rests in the ability of local groups to improve habits and conditions in their immediate surroundings. Therefore, creating healthy and caring relationships within said communities can be essential to stimulating the involvement of neighborhood leaders, localized public agencies, area businesses, schools and families. Cooperation, collaboration and a shared set...

Efforts to stimulate carpooling, bicycle riding and the integration of walking or biking paths can require the assembled efforts of numerous parties and can ultimately result in genuinely progressive changes in the way community members consume energy and contribute to air quality. Moreover, this microlevel relationships can help make way for macrolevel relationships where different communities support one another in meeting shared conservation and sustainability goals.
Slide 3: Avoiding Risks from Harmful Habits

In many ways, Chapter 15 of the Donatelle text illustrates, we can become addicted to certain habits that are negative for the environment and negative for our own individual health outcomes. For instance, cigarette smoking represents one of the leading causes of health maladies and mortality in the United States and is simultaneously a top cause of air pollution on the individual level. This denotes that in addition to the hazards of emphysema and lung cancer to which the smoker puts himself and others at risk, additional hazards exist in the smoker's contribution to the presence of harmful carcinogens in our air and environment. For the individual smoker then, cessation from this addiction represents one way -- albeit a challenging one -- to begin to make a direct impact on both personal and environmental health. The attitude which integrates personal and environmental health priorities can also significantly alter one's way of thinking such that decisions are made with the intent to lessen risk in both of these areas as well. This can lead to individual lifestyle changes in the areas of food consumption, energy consumption, transportation and purchasing habits all…