**8. Preventing the reversal of progress made in CVD research**

#### **8.1 Health behaviors**

At the primary level of prevention, modifying health behaviors, such as incorporating healthy eating and fitness habits into everyday lifestyles, can reduce metabolic risk factors (e.g., cholesterol levels, blood sugar levels, and BP) [25, 82]. The benefits of both reducing sedentary behavior together with increasing physical activity, especially in the elderly, is associated with a reduced risk for type 2 diabetes, compared with those physically inactive [82]. Lowering body fat, even if from obesity to overweight, can result in a reduction in metabolic abnormalities and lower levels of systemic inflammation, and lower BP [25]. The Look AHEAD study examined the effects of an intensive lifestyle intervention and found that lifestyle interventions can produce long term weight loss and improvement in fitness and sustained beneficial effects on CVD risk factors [83].

#### **8.2 Health literacy**

While self-acceptance and positive self-perception are certainly noble attributes, scientific knowledge of well-established risks of clinical obesity, particularly excess central body fat, cannot go unheeded. Health literacy, in combination with body positivity, may prevent reversal of the strides made in the reduction of CVD.

**91**

**Figure 6.**

*healthliteracy.htm [Accessed: 03 August 2020]).*

*Obesity Acceptance: Body Positivity and Clinical Risk Factors*

such as dropout rates in cardiac rehabilitation [84].

health status.

**8.3 Social media**

Health literacy is the degree to which individuals are able to access, understand, and use or process basic health information and services, thereby promoting good health for themselves, their families, and their communities [3]. Insufficient health literacy has been associated with poorer outcomes prior to and following coronary events, excess body weight, higher morbidity and mortality rates, healthcare use, and costs [84, 85] (**Figure 6**). Increasing health literacy will contribute to greater ability to read food labels, determine energy content, and make better food choices complementary to a healthy, physically active lifestyle. Health literacy should be evaluated as part of secondary prevention programs aiming to reduce CVD risk,

With the power to fundamentally change the way the population regards obesity and its health risks, health literacy has the potential to profoundly reduce barriers to health delivery, reduce health care costs, and improve overall

Social media is a crowded space that is filled with competing health messages. These platforms play a principal role in attempting to change health behavior and prevent or improve CVD health outcomes. Social media messages have influenced the health care decision making among patients, not all of whom always check the authenticity of information received. For example, in a study exploring the impact of health-related information sharing and the influence of social media on people's online health information-seeking behavior, the authors found that social media users received health information (80–90%), and admitted to starting (47%), and stopping medication (42%) after reading messages received on a social media platform [86]. Taking this into account, public health practitioners must focus their resources on platforms to counter sociological agendas. For example, most tenets of fat acceptance, body positivity (independent of weight status), and HAES® openly contradict health guidelines that are based on years of medical research. They must increase the amount of available information on CVD health, reinforce its salience

*Adverse health risks for patients with low health literacy (source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Center for Preparedness and Response. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/infographics/*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93540*

*Obesity Acceptance: Body Positivity and Clinical Risk Factors DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93540*

Health literacy is the degree to which individuals are able to access, understand, and use or process basic health information and services, thereby promoting good health for themselves, their families, and their communities [3]. Insufficient health literacy has been associated with poorer outcomes prior to and following coronary events, excess body weight, higher morbidity and mortality rates, healthcare use, and costs [84, 85] (**Figure 6**). Increasing health literacy will contribute to greater ability to read food labels, determine energy content, and make better food choices complementary to a healthy, physically active lifestyle. Health literacy should be evaluated as part of secondary prevention programs aiming to reduce CVD risk, such as dropout rates in cardiac rehabilitation [84].

With the power to fundamentally change the way the population regards obesity and its health risks, health literacy has the potential to profoundly reduce barriers to health delivery, reduce health care costs, and improve overall health status.
