Leadership On Organizational Performance -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Leadership On Organizational Performance? Answer: Introduction: Leadership is one of the basic necessities of an organization that makes it run, and thrive in a competitive environment. A leader and a group define the relationship in the organization that helps in the construction of a healthy and thriving environment for the organization to grow and persist in the market (Landauer, 2007). As a result the impact of a leader in a group is significant and it can go both ways having a major positive effect on the organization or the drastic negative impact on the organization. Hence, from ancient times, since the times of Vedic literature, to Plato, to the present, the concept of leadership and the right characteristics of a leader has been debated, theorised and sought, so that the negative impact of a leader can be minimised and the positive impact takes hold of an organization, or group, and directs it (Brennan, 2011). Since leadership has such a large impact on the organization and its members, there needs to be a constant check on the leader and the actual impact that the said leader is imparting on the organization. The leader once appointed needs to be monitored in a way that the leader works according to what the company expects from him and sees him to do in action. The leaders worldview, ethics, ways of communication, and the very image of the leader should be taken into consideration while the relationship of the leader and the group is being monitored in a way that the input of the leader in the group should not drastically affect the group and the way it is supposed to run (Taylor, 2008). A toxic leader is a leader who leads the group or a project to the end, only leaving it worse off or negatively than what it was before. Hence, the significance of a leader and the impact of the leader in a specific group activity or on a specific project should not be overlooked but regarded and supervi sed by experts in very analytical manner (Larsen, Monarchi, Hovorka, Bailey, 2008). This purpose of this project is to undertake a complete study of how leadership impacts an organization both positively and negatively so that the organization can safeguard itself and monitor the kind of leaders and leadership qualities that they expect and have chosen to be part of their organization. The Research proposal is centred on the kinds of leaders and the type of leadership that has been documented and theorised by psychologists and sociologists and how these can affect an organization in their specific ways (Zuffo, 2004). The project is organized in a specific way which is as follows. The Introduction will be part of Section I of this project. This shall be followed by Problem Statement, Research Objectives, Project Justification and the outcome that could be expected from the end of the project. This constitutes of Section I of the project. Section II consists of Conceptual Framework, Research Hypothesis and Methodology. Section III of this project consists of the Organization of the project, the Gantt chart and the estimated Budget required to carry out the project. Problem Statement: While the concepts of leadership are still dubious and ever-changing, there are certain characteristics that a leaders needs to have is self-defined and necessary. The character of the leader strikes out more prominently than that of the group since the leader defines the characters of the group, categorizes them, defines their role in the working of the organization and directs the entire group to the benefit of a project or an organization as a whole (Evangelopolous, 2011). Hence, the nature of impact of a leader on the group needs to be understood and studied closely. The root cause of the faulty leadership is not only the leader in itself but the methods in which the leader chooses to work. A leaders worldview, interactive skills, and ability to integrate a group and direct it to a singular objective is as necessary as is the methods in which the leader communicates the views and directs the group. Hence, it is a necessity that the correct leader be first chosen by letting the leader act in controlled environment, along with a proper training that should be imparted on the leader and an expert observation that would make the leader eligible for becoming the one who leads the organization (Kulesza, Weaver Friedman, 2011). Leadership is a natural talent but it is a talent that needs to be honed and trained to the specific of the organization. Thus, this project deals with such a very important issue and part of an organization, and tries to study and analyse the concepts of leadership and the impact that the leader is putting into the functioning of an organization and how it seems to be running after the impact has been placed on it(Taylor Bedeian, 2007). Also, the various documented methodsthat have been used and chosen by leaders of the past and the successes that could come out of it, depending on the organization, will be researched upon in this document. This is done so that no organization could falter due to poor leadership qualities, and so that leaders know what is expected from them in the future. Research Aim: The research is aimed at identifying the impact of leadership on an organization, the nature of the impact that the leader has on the organization. The research also aims at looking into the nature of leadership and how that could affect different organization in different manners and identifying the problems of faulty or inadequate leadership qualities and the way that those problems could be tackled and minimised for the benefit of an organization. More specifically, the study aims to answer the following questions: How the leadership impacted the organization? How well the methods or manners used by the leader benefitted the group and organization? How the group responded to the leader and how the organization responded to the leadership qualities of the leader? What are the factors of a leadership to thrive or fail in organizations? How well are the documented methods of a leader able to make an organization thrive? The answers to these questions would circulate around the specific aim of the project and try to evaluate the nature of a leadership and how it affects an organization. Research Justification: Leadership provides a direction to the group and leads the organization towards a specific path. However, since there is a constant interaction between the leader and the group, there needs to be study made on the response of groups towards their leaders. More generally, questions of how team member personalities interact to determine team effectiveness is a relatively understudied area (Taylor Bedeian, 2007). So this research tries to study the probably responses that a team may have on the leader and how the affections of the teams due to the leaderships impacts the entire organization as a whole. The double sided impact of leadership should be analysed and studied in this project. The proposal will be undertaken with the help of literature review of previous works which have tried come to similar results and have failed. Certain limitations to the previous work for that their concentration to a specific group or kind of industry hampered their ability to put the same result upon the other groups of industries (Paxton, 2011). Also, due to the gathering of information from third or fourth hand sources, the reliability of this information makes it dubious. The current project shall have the limitation of not identifying the social constructs that interacts with the organization but barring that, it would try to recognize the impact of leadership and the variance of the organization regarding the growth or fall after the leaders input (Salimath, 2011). An example of a leadership gone wrong could be seen from the debacle of Blackberry, which suffers from extreme cases of nepotism which makes the choosing of leaders not be made out of merit. Since nepotism wins over competence in Blackberry, the leaders impact on the organization as a whole is neither encouraging and nor positive (Martin Berry, 2007). Taking all these into consideration, the benefits that once could draw from the study are: It can be used to study how a leader can have an impact on an organization. The understudied area which brings the team members personalities into the purview of this academic study will result in opening up of a new path through which the study could be conducted. It will look into the methods of leadership and try to understand which industries are favoured by which kind of leadership. It will be extremely helpful for new companies, small companies or start-ups who are struggling to find leaders or to understand the impact of leadership in the organization Expected Result: The outcome of this project will provide a more extensive review of leadership qualities and how leadership qualities have an impact on organization. Though leaders are individual and their individual takes on leadership qualities are highly variable, a look into the documented cases of good and bad leadership techniques and a general overview of the impact of leadership on the organization should be able to provide a general skeleton of what is the expected impact from a leader and what is the way in which negative impacts could be minimized and positive impacts maximised through proper leadership skills (Short, 2011). The project seeks to answer all the objective based questions to get a deeper view into the effects of leadership. These outputs will be viewed as serious academic work in the future and could also help newer start-ups and small firms to identify proper leaders from their organization and try to make sure a positive impact is left in their organization making it capab le of success and growth. Conceptual Framework: Although leadership is one of the most dominant and interdisciplinary domains in organizational research, it is still unknown where and how leadership permeates its essence in the organization, in what parts and activities of the organization and how it directs the organization as a whole. However, subsequent reviews have illuminated on the observation that leadership has resulted in variation of performance and productivity as much as increasing it by 50% of the original. Thus the later reviews had been able to determine that leadership has a meaningful effect on the organization, but it was still unable to categorize, illuminate or address the many processes which help to mediate the relationship between a leader and the group and how the processes get affected by the relationship that is established between them (Wren, 2011). Organizational leaders are restricted by the internal framework of the organization and the social milieu (Wrege, 2008). The group leaders ability to implement goals does not only depend on the group leader but also on the environment, economic and social factors. However, it also depends on how the leader can bring the environmental, economic and social factors in his fold, overcome them and act even under these external pressures to thrive the organization. The research on leadership began with the search for traits to differentiate leaders from followers, which still remains an important area of study and now the study should also try to take into consideration the impact of these leaders on the followers and the organization. As noted by .The approach to the study of leadership has usually been and perhaps must always be through the study of traits. However there were several people who countered this trait approach claiming it to be simplistic and subjective in nature, not defin ing and thus, for some years, the approach was completely abandoned. However the study was taken up again after a severe meta-analysis that brought forth the impact that leadership and a leaders traits brings upon the entire team and organization as a whole (Wren Bedeian, 2009). In critical studies by Lord, De Vader, it was found that two personality characteristics predicted leadership emergence (dominance and masculinity femininity) and these characteristics can be used in a way to direct a complete group and organization towards a specific direction. Hence, the impact of a leader on an organization has been a topic of constant study for quite a while and it includes the very examination of a leader as a person, as a person in stressed periods of time, along with the methods used by the leader or routinely employed by him on a specific group of people or for the completion of a specific project (Zuffo, 2011). In leadership the specific two sets of techniques that are generally accepted, developed by Douglas McGregor, a social psychologist and Management Professor at MIT, referred to as the theory X and theory Y. The theory X defines a leadership technique which uses strict and punitive measures to encourage the team to work. Defined objectives are made by the leader, commanded to the employees who are given the specific timeline to complete the task (OECD 2004). On the other hand, the Theory Y leadership technique takes an active effort of making the work environment conducive for encouraging work, for rewarding relationship, active contribution for employees, innovation and creating the right conditions for the workers to add value to the organization (Crawford, 2009). Both these techniques or a mixture of these are suitable for specific work conditions and the exploration of such a technique and the proper condition to make use of it needs to be done for the benefit of the organization as a whole. Methodology: The following methodologies have been taken to fulfil the goals of this project and analyse and study the points with which this project deals with: Literature Review: An in-depth study of any form of literature has been done from the available sources which include Google Scholar, leadership websites, the Psychology in Work books, and magazine on organization and organizational research. Data Collection/ Questionnaire:Several methods to collect data have been used to gauge the impact that leadership has upon a specific team and organization, which has been measured from both the point of view of the leader and that of the group. Questionnaire: By the use of questionnaire, the subjective views of the impact of the leader on the group and the impact of the group on the leader shall be collected. The questionnaires will be based on a scale of 1 being highly demoralizing and 5 being highly motivational and they will be presented both to the leader and the group. Such a scale shall determine the impact of the leader on the group and their performance while it will also determine how the leader reacts to the group or how well the leader respects the group that they are handling. Company Records: A daily study of the company records shall be conducted with the permission of the company to check the variance of performance in the different fields so that a specific trend can be observed and noted from which a general conclusion could be drawn on the nature of impact of the leadership that the company faces. Such studies will also help in the measurement and analyses of the data for future references. Data Measurement and Analysis Method: One of the ways in which such a study could be conducted and examined is by using the common method variance. Method variance refers to the variance that is attributable to the measurement method than conduct of interest. The term method refers to the form of measurement at different levels of abstractions. Method variances take in estimates of certain items and use them to come to a certain conclusion. Since it is based on estimation, the figures and the conclusion to which it comes may come close to the original but not precise, however it is a good method to estimate a specific leadership impact that takes place on the organization and where the leader is directing the entire organization (Wren Bedeian, 2004). It is a calculative measure that is used to make sure that the impact of a leader is well-monitored and supervised and is used in specific fields and aspects of the leaders domain to keep a constant surveillance of the organization and its activities. The research will consider all the results that appears from the above methodologies to come to a specific conclusion. It shall measure the degree of impact that a leader has on the organizational performance and on the morale of the team, compare the expectations and deduce if there are any faults or deviations which should be taken into consideration and studied further. The literature review and the responses received through the survey shall be reviewed and analysed further to get a detailed overview on the entire aspect of the study. Organisation of the Study: The organisation of the study is as follows: Chapter 1: It will deal with the research Proposal. Chapter 2: It will have an in-depth discussion of the impact of leadership on an organizational level and the effect it has on the team and the objective based activity set for the team to take up. Chapter 3: It will include the details of the methodologies used: literature reviews, surveys and data collection, and data measurement. Chapter 4: It will contain the findings and analyses of the report. Chapter 5: It will summarize the important findings, look into the matter and try to discuss the in-depth implications and problems and solution to the matter. Gantt Chart: The following table shows the timeline for the whole project to be completed: Gantt Chart Data For Project Submission Start Date End Date Description Duration (days) 15-Feb 03-Mar Project Proposal 16 10-Mar 10-Apr Literature Review 31 15-Apr 15-May Data Collection 30 18-May 20-June Data Analysis 32 25-June 25-July Data Measurement 30 26-July 31-July Final Report Submission 5 Project Budget Justification: The budget of the specific project is about $7500 that would be necessary to complete the project at the stipulated time as signified in the Gantt chart. The budget has been specified for the following reasons: The Literature Review would require the use of books and study materials and access to places that are not free of cost. The estimate for this is around $2000. The Data collection will require collection of paper, printing, and travelling. It may also be necessary to hire persons to do the interviews. This will require an amount of about $3750. The Data Analysis would require chart, organizational studies, records, past figure for which a budget is allocated. This may cost about $1750. In summary, Purpose Estimate Literature Review $2000 Data Collection $3750 Data Analysis $1750 Total Budget Estimation $7500 References Brennan, L.L. (2011). The Scientific Management of Information Overload. Journal of Business and Management, 17(1): 121-134. Crawford, M. B. (2009). Shop class as soulcraft: An inquiry into the value of work. New York: Penguin. Evangelopolous, N. (2011). Citing Taylor: Tracing Taylorisms Technical and Sociotechnical Duality through Latent Semantic Analysis. Journal of Business andManagement, 17(1): 57-74. Heames, J.T. Breland, J.W. (2010). Management Pioneer Contributors: 30-Year Review. Journal of Management History, 16(4): 427-436. Hu, X., Cai, Z., Wiemer-Hastings, P., Graesser, A.C. McNamara, D.S. (2007). Kulesza, M.G., Weaver, P.G. Friedman, S. (2011). Frederick W. Taylors Presence in 21st Century Management Accounting Systems and Work Process Theories. Journal of Business and Management, 17(1): 105-119. Landauer, T.K. (2007). LSA as a theory of meaning. In Landauer, T.K., McNamara, D.S., Dennis, S. Kintsch, W. (Eds.), Handbook of Latent Semantic Analysis. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Larsen, K.R., Monarchi, D.E., Hovorka, D.S. Bailey, C.N. (2008). Analyzing unstructured text data: Using latent categorization to identify intellectual communities in information systems. Decision Support Systems, 45: 884-896. Martin, D. Berry, M. (2007). Mathematical foundations behind Latent Semantic Analysis. In Landauer, T.K., McNamara, D.S., Dennis, S. Kintsch, W. (Eds.), Handbook of Latent Semantic Analysis. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. OECD (2004). OECD Health Project: Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) statement, meeting of health ministers, 13-14 May 2004. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Report SG/ HEALTH/ MIN(2004)6, 4-May-2004, https://www.oecd.org/ dataoecd/21/31/31644101.pdf [accessed July 31, 2010]. Paxton, J. (2011). Taylors Unsung Contribution: Making Interchangeable Parts Practical. Journal of Business and Management, 17(1): 75-83. Salimath, M. (2011). Scientific Entrepreneurial Management: Bricolage, Bootstrapping, and the Quest for Efficiencies. Journal of Business and Management, 17(1): 85-104. Short, J.C. (2011). The Debate Goes On! A Graphic Portrayal of the Sinclair-Taylor Editorial Dialogue. Journal of Business and Management, 17(1): 43-55. Strengths, limitations, and extensions of LSA. In Landauer, T.K., McNamara, D.S., Dennis, S. Kintsch, W. (Eds.), Handbook of Latent Semantic Analysis. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Taylor, Frederick W. (2008). A report of a lecture and questions put to Mr. Taylor: a transcript, Journal of Management History, 14: 214-236. Taylor, S.G. Bedeian, A.G. (2007). From boardroom to bunker: how Fred Taylor changed the game of golf forever, Management Organizational History, 2: 195- 218. Wrege, C.D. (2008), F.W. Taylors Lectures on Management, June 4, 1907, Journal of Management History, 14: 209-213. Wren, D.A. Bedeian, A.G. (2004). The Taylorization of Lenin: Rhetoric or reality? International Journal of Social Economics, 31: 287-299. Wren, D.A. Bedeian, A.G. (2009). The Evolution of Management Thought 6th ed. New York: John Wiley Sons. Wren, D.A. (2011). The Centennial of Frederick W. Taylors The Principles of Scientific Management: A Retrospective Commentary. Journal of Business and Management, 17(1): 11-22. Zuffo, R. G. (2004). Taylor. Le origini dello Scientific Management e della psicologia del lavoro. Milano: Raffaello Cortina. Zuffo, R.D. (2011). Taylor Is Dead, Hurray Taylor! The Human Factor in Scientific Management: Between Ethics, Scientific Psychology and Common Sense. Journal of Business and Management, 17(1): 23-41.

Free Essay - Financial Scholarships

Free Essay - Financial ScholarshipsFinancial scholarships can be very helpful to many students. If you are interested in going to college or even just starting a career, then you are probably going to need financial assistance. Many people in the United States will turn to these types of scholarships to get their degree. Here is a free financial scholarships essay sample to use.You may not have a clue what to write in this kind of essay, but it can be done. However, remember that you need to be prepared to do the research necessary to come up with a great essay. The more you are prepared, the better off you will be.You will need to gather the basic information for the essay. One thing you will want to do is start from the top and work your way down. For example, you could begin by listing the different categories of people who can qualify for the scholarship and make sure that you mention how they fit into each category.Another thing you will want to include in your essay is the purp ose of the scholarship. This will help you decide if you are asking the right questions. Asking the wrong questions will mean that you don't ask enough questions. There are many questions in the essay, so make sure that you ask all of them.One very important aspect of the financial scholarship that you need to pay attention to is the deadlines. You should make sure that you are following the deadlines. Remember that you need to get the essay finished before the deadline. The essay needs to be completed before this date.If you find that you have some additional questions after you have completed the financial scholarship essay sample, you can contact the writing company who wrote the essay for you. They will be happy to answer any of your questions. However, you should not use their samples as a basis for the essay. You should make sure that you have written your own essay.These financial scholarships can be very helpful for a student who is having trouble paying the tuition. You can find out a lot about these scholarships by using an essay that is based on a free financial scholarships essay sample. This type of essay sample will help you find the right scholarships for you.

A Farewell to Arms essays

A Farewell to Arms essays A Farewell to Arms, by Earnest Hemingway, is a great novel about the pains of life including the great sorrow that comes with loosing those you love. Frederic Henry, the protagonist of the story, is an American Lieutenant in the Italian Army during the First World War. This fact is significant in learning why this book was written because Earnest Hemingway, an American, actually drove ambulances for the Italian Army during the war. Therefore, one could safely say that this book is somewhat of a portrayal of Hemingways own experiences during the war. The gap between humanitys noble words and its dishonorable deeds was never more obvious than during World War I. For this reason the war serves brilliantly as the setting for Hemingways novel of love and disillusionment. The story begins in the summer of 1915. This is about the time that Italy joined the war. The starting place is a city named Gorizia located in Northeastern Italy near the front with Austria-Hungary. This is where Frederic lives along with the rest of the officers. As the story develops, Frederic ends up in many different cities and towns, all along the Italian-Austrian front. The story ends in the late spring of 1918 not in Italy but rather in Lausanne, Switzerland. Hemingways choice of Italy as his setting reinforces his theme. One reason for its effectiveness is that Italy was where Hemingway served as an ambulance driver: he knew its terrain and its military history very well. Italy is also a setting that further demonstrates the ironies of war. To most of the world, France was where the real war was taking place; even today our memories of World War I are drawn mainly from the Western front. Italy was, as Henry says, the picturesque front. Yet in this picturesque land men are being slaughtered by the tens of thousands. What better time and place could serve for Frederic Henrys farewell to arms? The novel sta...

102 Monsters and Revision Professor Ramos Blog

102 Monsters and Revision Evaluation Examples Quick Write What is your grade or judgment of the monster? Whats the final verdict? Evaluation Examples Cyclopes Werewolf Vampire Macbeth Monster Rubric Critical Thinking Clarity of Thought Analysis and Thesis Images and Title MLA and Revision: American Idol Offer three separate critiques of points or paragraphs. Critical. Be direct or decisive on what was good or bad in the evaluation. Generous. Be generous and/or emotional in your reading and comments. Constructive. Offer evenhanded constructive feedback. Connecting Issues to Monsters Think of a contemporary issue we have been struggling with as a society. Keep in mind the monster theory we have been working with to understand culture. In small groups, draw a monster that connects with or represents a current social issue. Add a caption or some text to give the drawing some context.

Ethics at Coca Cola Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Ethics at Coca Cola - Essay Example This reading of the social context allowed her to execute changes via the political platform by virtue of her leadership of the European Beverages Association. Her leadership of the association thus allowed for important changes specifically restricting marketing of coca cola and other softdrinks not only to make ethical changes in how to do business within her company but also industry-wide. Consequently, ethical changes made by Reiniche were wise with respect to the strategic advantage they conferred to Coke. Other beverage companies were moving in environmentally and ethically driven direction, so Coke could not afford to be left behind and thus, make the move instead a source of competitive advantage. Collaboration and effective communication with regulators, industry players and other non-governmental organization as shown by Reiniche is another facet of organizational leadership. The change initiated with respect to restricting marketing of softdrinks to children necessitated not only the efforts of one company but the collaboration of many concerned parties. Collaboration allows for easier facility of the implementation of the ethical agenda through support and the authoritative use of influence and power to make changes (it greatly helped for instance that Reiniche was President of the European Beverages Association that she welded power to lead the industry to make changes). Furthermore, collaboration only works with effectively communicating agenda to all concerned parties. Coke’s chief executive by Neville Isdell has communicated that ethical changes regarding operations to address environmental concerns are what Coke have in mind – with speeches as he did for the Worldwide Fund for Nature’s annual conference. In action, he has in fact led his company to collaborate with WWF to cut back and recycle the billion of liters of water it uses annually. Creativity and

Although we need regulation on internet for many reasons, the U.S Essay

Although we need regulation on internet for many reasons, the U.S government should not regulate internet because it could endanger e-business - Essay Example Internet was invented to facilitate the information collection system and communication of the USA military force. However, with the increased use of computer over time and sharp fall in computer prices, Internet made its entry into the households in the 80s and more effectively during 90s. Soon Internet became popular in almost all the developed countries and made its way into the developing countries as well. The 90s witnessed a sharp decrease in computer prices owing to the continuous research and development in the field of Information Technology and efficient, smaller and cheaper computers had been invented during this period. At the same time Internet became more and more available due to spread of optical fiber at a mass level and its price fell due to the emergence of competing organizations in the field of Internet service providers. The situation was perfect for the Internet to spread at the onset of the new millennium and it made an optimum use of that situation to spread even at a much faster rate than before and made a much deeper drive than it had ever made since its inception. The U.S government should not regulate Internet because it could endanger e-business. Firstly, Internet is readily available to anyone and even that at a cheap rate. The ready availability is due to the spread of optical fiber beneath the seawater, which has made possible the continental connectivity and the cheaper price is due to the competitive nature of the Internet service providers’ market. If one service provider asks a little higher price he would surely lose customers, as the customer will get the same service at a cheaper rate. Secondly, Internet is brilliant for getting any information, from weather condition to railway availability. All these can be known by a click of the mouse and comparing to its information providing capability, the

Effects of Diet and Exercise on the Human Body

Effects of Diet and Exercise on the Human Body How to Maintain a Healthy Body How do we maintain a healthy body? To look at this we need to first decide what health means. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has defined health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.1 If this is the case then having a healthy diet may not mean that we have a healthy body. We also need to take into account that how we look at health has changed dramatically over the years. For example in the 17th Century the major factor of health was things like the bubonic plague due to fleas on rats. Today we have to worry about things like obesity and swine flu. I am going to look at numerous factors which contribute to a healthy body. I am going to look at diet, exercise and social factors, all of which I believe can contribute to maintaining a healthy body. Firstly I am going to look at the effects diet has on our body. For humans to survive we need food, however, we need certain types of food and we need to eat a balanced diet to have a healthy body. The foods we should be consuming to have a healthy balanced diet are; proteins, fats and oils, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins, fibre and water. We need each of these food groups for a certain reason. For example we need protein to help our body repair itself, we need carbohydrates as these are broken down into simple sugars like glucose which is the primary source of energy for the brain, and we need iron to form red blood cells which carry oxygen round the body. If we eat less or more of these than we require this may cause problems for our body making us unhealthy. It is typically known that a diet high in fruit and vegetables is good for our body, however it is not widely known that if we have a diet lacking in these that it can be very damaging to our body. The WHO estimates that 2. 7 million deaths are attributed to a diet low in fruit and vegetables every year2. If we have an unhealthy diet this can cause a number of chronic diseases including: high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and cancer2. Each of these diseases can affect a persons quality of life and also can reduce a persons life expectancy. If we have an unhealthy diet this can cause many problems both for now and in the future, for example, if we eat too much sugar this can give us tooth decay which means we have an unhealthy mouth, and if we have too much salt then over time this can build up and cause us to have high blood pressure which can be potentially fatal. The WHO classes anyone that is 30% or more overweight to be obese. If we are obese then this can greatly lower our life expectancy and also our quality of life. If someone is overweight they do not have a healthy body and our likely also to not have a healthy mind. I now want to look at how exercise can help us to maintain a healthy body. There are many benefits of exercise both for our bodies and our mental health. The benefits of exercise on our bodies include; preventing heart disease, can reduce high blood pressure and can prevent diabetes. The benefits of exercise for our mental health include; helping to relieve stress, helping to reduce the symptoms of depression and helping to relieve sleeping problems. If someone is stressed or has had a bad day which has affected their mood then going out for a walk can be very beneficial to them. It has been proven that any aerobic exercise releases a mood altering substance called endorphins. Endorphins have been proven to improve our mood and also reduce levels of stress3. Now I am going to look at how social factors can affect whether or not we have a healthy body. Social factors include; our social status, area we live, and outside influences. Social factors can play a large role in how we maintain our bodies. In todays society it can be quite expensive to live healthy, the price of fresh and healthy foods are often more expensive than cheap processed foods. If someone doesnt have a lot of money and doesnt earn a lot then they are more likely to go for the cheaper version which is what they can afford. This then affects their health as processed foods tend to have more of the things that are bad for us in them. Also if someone is classed as poor they are more likely to live in an area where there is more pollution and less focus on health. This may have a huge impact on whether they have a healthy body or not. In conclusion having a healthy body can not be accomplished by merely eating healthy. There are many factors to consider when we are trying to maintain a healthy body. If we want to be healthy then we must take into account what health means; a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.1 Therefore we must have a healthy diet, exercise and make sure that we take care of our mental health. In todays society it is harder than ever to maintain a healthy body with all the outside influences like drugs and alcohol. However if we want to be healthy then we must at least try to lead a healthy lifestyle and take care of our bodies and minds as we only have one. References Given, P. and Reiss, M. Human Biology and Health Studies, 2nd Edition, (2002), Nelson Thornes LTD, Cheltenham, UK, ISBN 0-17-490060-0 World Health Organisation (WHO), Diet and physical activity: a public health priority, http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/en/ Donnellan, C. (ed) How fit are we? Issues, (2000), Independence Publishers, Cambridge, UK, ISBN 1-86168-120-8 Encyclopedia, Endorphins facts and information, http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/endorphins.aspx Medical News Today, What is health? What does good health mean?, http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/150999.php