The Development of Health Lifestyles in Families Experiencing Disability

Abstract

The family system is an important contributor to one's development of health lifestyles or the patterns of health behaviors one engages in. Research has yet to explore how health lifestyles develop within families or how disability may affect this process. This study uses qualitative data collected from parents and key informants in two U.S. communities to address this gap in the literature. Findings capture a process through which health lifestyles develop in families with a child with a disability. This process revealed that parents first become more conscious of the importance of health as a result of having a child with a disability, which led to changes in parent identity and was ultimately translated into primarily positive changes to family health behaviors. This process appears to be largely driven by community norms and stigmas associated with disability.

Calidad de vida y funcionamiento ejecutivo en cuidadores primarios de niños y adolescentes con discapacidad

“…Estos resultados pueden explicarse según la teoría, ya que ser cuidador informal en contexto de discapacidad puede incrementar los niveles de resiliencia porque los cuidadores se tornan más conscientes de la importancia del https://doi.org/10. 16888/interd.2023.40.3.13 Calidad de vida y funcionamiento ejecutivo mantenimiento de su salud mental (Brito et al, 2022;Pinquart y Sörensen, 2003;Rigles, 2019). Así también, es importante considerar que la mayoría de los participantes de este estudio contaba con apoyo institucional y apoyo externo para el cuidado del niño o adolescente.…”

“I just want her to be happy and healthy”: Deploying broad understandings of health in class-privileged parenting

“…We also note an exception to participants' predominant pattern of using privilege to justify de-emphasizing physical or psychological health. This exception involved families who included someone with a disability or serious health condition (Rigles, 2019). Parents in these families explained that they could not take physical or psychological health for granted and thus could not spend the "currency" of good physical health in de-emphasizing some aspects of it, despite their advantaged positions.…”

“…Bolstering her identity as a good parent around health, Jessica focused in the interview on her efforts to provide a good diet, "cook everything from scratch," and emphasize good sleep. Jessica had a child with a serious health condition, so her focus on bolstering physical health was expected (Rigles, 2019). Other class-privileged parents' narratives showed that when child health concerns were absent, they were able to use their children's current health and their high-resource lives as a currency of sorts.…”

Challenges Caused by the COVID-19 Quarantine for Families Raising Children with Disabilities: Compatibility Between Working from Home and Childcare

“…Scientists have determined that people who are left excluded from society due to their special needs are more affected by stress, which negatively influences also the health and behavior of their family members (Rigles, 2019). A margin between active society and vulnerable social groups is ever increased in the time of the pandemic (Dukes & Berlingo, 2020).…”