ORIGINAL PAPER
How do Polish workers respond to the information
concerning health-oriented lifestyle?
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Instytut Medycyny Pracy im. prof. J. Nofera / Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine, Łódź, Poland
(Krajowe Centrum Promocji Zdrowia w Miejscu Pracy / National Centre of Workplace Health Promotion)
Online publication date: 2017-06-08
Corresponding author
Elżbieta Korzeniowska
Instytut Medycyny Pracy im. prof. J. Nofera,
Krajowe Centrum Promocji Zdrowia w Miejscu Pracy, ul. św. Teresy 8, 91-348 Łódź
Med Pr Work Health Saf. 2017;68(4):525-43
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ABSTRACT
Background: Information overload, including commercial ones, about healthy lifestyle, is a challenge for perception of health
education. Material and Methods: The empirical data gathered from 100 employees in 2010 by means of free interviews with
a standardized list of required information, aimed at analyzing a feeling of pressure to lead a healthy lifestyle, including reactions
to meassages provided by the media. Results: Respondents feel pressure associated with a healthy lifestyle from doctors, the state,
relatives, friends and themselves. They accept pressure exerted by doctors and appreciate it from relatives and friends, however, the
latter may stimulate adverse behavior. As a negative pressure they perceive that imposed by the media, government’s shifting the
responsibility for citizens’ health, information overload contradictory to their own knowledge, unattainable recommendations
and their volatility. Such pressure evokes conviction for their own resistance or rejection of the messages. They criticize the media
for promoting unhealthy behavior, attending interests of advertisers, hiding information about harmful environmental influence.
They appreciate the media for facilitating learning about health and preventive examinations. Health education messages are
only occasionally identified by better educated people. Conclusions: “Dense” information environment is a hostile background
for health education. An excess of critically evaluated information evokes pressure and lack of trust in information. Therefore,
health education should facilitate the identification of its contents, avoid normative methods, limit the number of guidelines and
better explain the faced changes, counteract tendencies to associate healthy lifestyle mainly with consumer behaviors, teach how
to maintain self orientation in information overload conditions, and build up awareness of one’s own brand. Med Pr 2017;68(4):525–543