Using Social Support to Help Our Healthy Behavior Goals

Social support from friends and family in the form of offering encouragement, establishing connection, providing accountability, and modeling has been shown to help improve adherence for a wide variety of health behaviors, including eating less fat, and exercising more and medication management.

Making healthy lifestyle choices is easier when you feel connected to the people around you. The degree of social connection or isolation you feel may even influence something as basic as the variety in your diet.

Finding emotional support is important to beginning and maintaining a new behavior change, such as increasing exercise. Sometimes this means finding someone to talk to while working out, complaining when you don't feel like exercising or someone to cheer you on when you fall short of your goals or the activity gets challenging. Sometimes practical support is useful to being successful with your program.  Practical support could be getting a ride to the exercise class, someone giving you weights that they no longer can use or sharing a healthy recipe.

Most of us know what it is like to be lonely in a room full of people. You could be surrounded by hundreds of people, but if there is no one you can rely on, no one who knows you, you will feel isolated.

In order to be socially satisfied, we don't need all that many people. According to John Cacioppo, PhD. (Director of the Center of Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, University of Chicago) the key is in the quality, not the quantity of those people. We just need several on whom we can depend and who depend on us in return. Severe lack of social support or social isolation, has been to impairs immune function and boosts inflammation, which can lead to arthritis, type II diabetes, and heart disease. In other words, making us less healthy.

Cacioppo's early interest in loneliness is a scientist's story, not a personal one.  Three sociologists conducted an analysis showing that objective isolation—a lack of social contact—predicted death from a broad range of maladies. The researchers suggested that “social support" from friends and family might “foster a sense of meaning or coherence that promotes health" and encourage loved ones to exercise, eat better, sleep more, and drink less.

Some studies show support from friends and peers greatly improved peoples' chance of sticking with an exercise routine or dietary change, while other studies should that encouragement made participants less likely to exercise in the future.  While that might surprise you, many people that feel pressured to by physically active or to eat “healthy" by friends and family, may shy away from that activity or eating with them.  The take away message, find that friend or family member that encourages you, not discourages you to work towards your goals.  The right type of person can motivate you to reach your goals.

Tips for using social supports to reach healthy behavior goals:

• Try to exercise with a partner or friend
• Find a small group that enjoys the same physical activities as you do
• Have your friends or family accommodate your food choices by offering food that is compatible with your diet
• Finding friends that respecting your choices, giving you the space to make your own decisions
• Choosing restaurants where you will be likely to find something to eat in your meal plan
• Having your friends choose to  eat a similar diet and sharing food with you over meals, potlucks, or other social gatherings
• Have your support system, teach, lead, or otherwise inspiring you to make even healthier choices through their own modeling

References

J.T. Cacioppo and S. Cacioppo (2014). Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8, 58–72, 10.1111/spc3.12087

Barrera M, Jr., Toobert DJ, Angell KL, Glasgow RE, Mackinnon DP. “Social support and social-ecological resources as mediators of lifestyle intervention effects for type 2 diabetes." [In eng]. J Health Psychol 11, no. 3 (May 2006): 483-495.

Morisky DE, DeMuth NM, Field-Fass M, Green LW, Levine DM. “Evaluation of family health education to build social support for long-term control of high blood pressure." [In eng]. Health Educ Q 12, no. 1 (Spring 1985): 35-50.

Scarapicchia, Tanya Maria Filomena, Steve Amiereault, Guy Faulkner, and Catherine Michelle Sabison. “Social support and physical activity participation among health adults: a systematic review of prospective studies." International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology 10:1 (2016): 50-83.