Education makes healthy choices easier, beginning early in life
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* Natalie McGill

While people may not realize it, the seeds of motivation to bike to work instead of drive, or eat a salad instead of a burger, are planted early on. And the more education a person has, the more likely those seeds grow into lifelong healthy habits.

Early childhood program instruction, such as the federally funded Head Start program, can plant those seeds. Head Start focuses on several domains of school readiness, one of which focuses on approaches to learning, said Blanca Enriquez, PhD, director of the Office of Head Start. This includes emotional, behavioral and cognitive self-regulation.

“Supporting children’s skills in this domain helps children acquire knowledge, learn new skills and set and achieve goals, all of which have an impact on a person’s health at any age,” Enriquez told *The Nation’s Health.* “A person with strong approaches to learning will be curious about healthy practices, take initiative for making healthy choices and have better self-regulation in resisting things like smoking or doughnuts.”

People with more education are also more likely to be able to afford living in communities that promote better health, particularly ones with recreational opportunities, such as parks, and stores with healthy, affordable foods, according to a 2011 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America issue brief exploring social determinants of health.

![Figure1](http://www.thenationshealth.org/http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/nathealth/46/6/19/F1.medium.gif)

[Figure1](http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/46/6/19/F1)

Paola Garcia reads with Emily, her 3-year-old daughter, at Action for Boston Community Development's Head Start program in March 2013 in Boston. Garcia was attending English-as-a-second-language classes while her daughter attended Head Start, which provides early learning.

Photo by Justin Sullivan, courtesy Getty Images

In addition, research shows the amount of education someone has is linked to how empowered they feel in their lives, said APHA member Paula Braveman, MD, MPH, a research director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Commission to Build a Healthier America and director of the Center on Social Disparities in Health at the University of California-San Francisco. The more people are able to feel in control of their lives, the more able they are to adopt healthy behaviors, maintain healthy behaviors and stop harmful ones, she said.

“If you don’t have a sense that you’re in control…that’s a huge risk factor for having unhealthy behaviors,” Braveman told *The Nation’s Health.*

*Get more insights into education as a social determinant of health in our new podcast with Braveman, online now at [www.thenationshealth.org/sdoh](http://www.thenationshealth.org/sdoh).*

*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association