Dr. Serenity Della Porta received her B.A. in Psychology from California State University, Fresno and her Ph.D. in Social and Personality Psychology from University of California, Riverside where she researched how things like personality and relationships impact health and longevity. She has taught university courses on Health Psychology, Health and Behavior Change, and Statistics; and currently works to educate individuals and help organizations improve their understanding of the complex biopsychosocial nature of health.

In this episode, Dr. Serenity explores the historical context in which our current emphasis on health and wellness developed. Surprisingly, this increased interest in improving health through changing our behaviors is relatively new. Only for the past 60 years has there been a serious conversation about health habits such as diet and exercise. It’s been fewer than 30 years of mainstream interest.

A general discussion of how we came to understand the causes of disease, and how this shapes our current views on health to this day, sets the stage for future explorations into our current culture of health and what we know about its links to psychological and social factors.