Introduction
Health is a condition of being free from injury or illness. It can also be said to be the physical and or mental state of a person. On the other hand, sociology is a social problem study. It can also be viewed as the functioning, structure, and development of the society of humans. Health and sociology are important elements in society and well being of humans in an environment. This is a write up on sociology and health with reference to the analysis of two hypotheses, and they include:
- A child’s birth weight is associated with the parents’ birth weight and socioeconomic class.
- Excellent health comes with less stress; therefore, people who work more are not as healthy as people who do not.
A child’s birth weight is associated with the parents’ birth weight and socioeconomic class
A child’s birth weight is the weight that a child bears at birth. A child may bear a high or low weight at birth. There are several factors that influence the weight of a child at birth, for instance, the weight of the parents and socioeconomic class of the parents among others. However, this paper focuses on the influence of parents’ weight and socioeconomic class on the weight of a child at birth. There are different assumptions that are made on the weight of children at birth. These assumptions are basically based on races and socioeconomic classes, for instance, race and weight at birth.
It is believed that there are certain races that give birth to children with average weights while others give birth to children with low or high weights above the expected and recommended weight at birth medically. Race influences weight at birth due to differentials in consumption or eating habits. There are certain races that consume junk foods while others rely on food with either high protein or carbohydrate content.
Furthermore, there are certain races of people that are believed to have heavyweights, and always give birth to children with high birth weights. This is due to the physic of the respective race, for instance, Blacks. On the other hand, there are other races that are believed to give birth to low weighted children due to the physical nature of the respective race, for instance, Asians. Moreover, there are other races that are believed to give birth to children with average weight due to their physical appearance, for instance, the whites.
Race may influence the weight of children at birth because racially there are different cultural beliefs during pregnancy. Cultural beliefs are upheld and rarely ignored due to the consequences of doing so. Therefore, pregnant women are not likely to ignore cultural beliefs during pregnancies.
Upholding the beliefs may lead to the birth of a child with a weight associated with the respective race. This is because different races have different believes in what ought to be done by women while pregnant to ensure the healthy state of the unborn baby. Furthermore, different races have different beliefs on the foods to be taken by pregnant women. This influences the weight of children at birth. Therefore, since racial beliefs are respected by different races, a child’s weight is most likely to be associated with the weight of his or her parents’ birth weights. This is because their grandparents are also adhered to by the racial beliefs about pregnant women and feeding habits hence born under similar consequences.
Moreover, a child’s birth weight is also associated with parents’ birth weight due to the biological composition of the parents. A child’s biological composition is influenced by the parents’ biological composition leading to similarities in genetic composition. Therefore, in case parents’ of a child were born with low weights especially mothers, then the child is most likely to have low birth weight and vice versa. However, it is believed that the weight of a girl child is closely associated with the mother’s birth weight while a boy childbirth weight is closely associated with the birth weight of the father.
Secondly, socioeconomic class and a child’s birth weight. There are different classes in the society considering the social and economic well being of people living in society. Socioeconomic classification is basically based on the income of respective families in the society and their ability to afford basic needs among other family needs, for instance, wealthy, poor, and middle-level classes. It is logical that children from wealthy families should be healthy because they have access to health services and social facilities that they require considering their family income level. On the other hand, it is logical that children from poor families may be unable to access quality health services and access quality social amenities of facilities.
A child’s weight at birth is associated with the socioeconomic class of his or her parents due to several reasons, for instance, the ability to access quality health services. Pregnant women opt to access quality health services to ensure that unborn babies are safe and healthy before birth.
Quality health services to pregnant women also ensure that the children are healthy at birth. The weight of a child at birth is also a health concern that can also be influenced by the socioeconomic class of the parents of the respective child. Parents from a high social class have access to quality health services and diet. Medically, there are certain essential foodstuffs that are recommended for pregnant women to ensure that the child is healthy at birth. However, these foodstuffs may not be accessed by all families in the society or community due to high prices, especially low-income families.
Consumption of such foodstuff ensures that a mother gives birth to a healthy baby with the recommended weight medically at birth. Lack of such foodstuff may lead to birth of low weighted children or high weighted children. Furthermore, there are certain food stuffs that are not recommendable for women during pregnancy. These food stuffs may be avoided by pregnant women from high income earning families while those from low income earning families may not. This is because the low income families mainly consume what they can afford and readily available at their reach. Moreover, families with high income have high purchasing power hence able to satisfy their needs and wants adequately.
High income earning families are also able to afford consultative medical services. This enables the families to ensure that the weight of their child at birth is medically accepted and not a health threat to the newly born child. Such families may afford services of a doctor at their request leading to birth of children with controlled weights. On the other hand, families with low incomes may not be able to afford costs of consultative medical professionals.
Generally, weight of a child at birth is a health concern and opts to be monitored during the pregnancy period of the mother. Birth of a child with a weight that is medically recommended is only possible with constant consultation of medical services. These services are costly and can only be frequently accessed by high income earning families while low income earning families may rarely afford such services. Therefore, weight of a child is associated with the socioeconomic class of his or her parents because it determines access to health services, which determines weight of the respective child at birth being a health concern.
Excellent health comes with less stress; therefore, people who work more are not as healthy as people who do not
Stress is a threat to the well being of human because it affects health status. There are several causes of stress, for instance, work. Work is considered one of the main causes of stress. Work related stress has adverse effects on health of workers hence affecting quality of health of workers. Unemployed people are not exposed to high levels of stress as opposed to those people who work. Stress at the work place is basically caused by deadline and objective pressures at the work place.
There are work schedules that employees must adhere to at a work a place. Furthermore, there are other several conditions or terms that employees must follow. These rules are applicable to all employees. Moreover, there are organizational objectives that opt to be achieved within a specified period failure to which might lead to sacking or suspension of responsible employees or workers in case they are not realized.
This forces workers to work hard to ensure that an organization achieves its goals. Failure to achieve the organizational goals may threaten employment status of responsible employees. This causes tension at the work place because each employee is in need of his or her job due to financial needs. These terms of employment and achievement of organizational goals are the main factors that cause stress in a working environment because they greatly influence employment status of employees in respective organizations or companies.
Employees or workers are exposed to more stress than the unemployed or people who do not work. Stress triggers reaction of the pituitary adrenal glands hence affecting quality of health of human. Therefore, based on stress grounds people who do not work have excellent health compared to people who work due to level of stress they are exposed to. However, avoiding stress is not the key to excellent health.
There are other factors that also affect health of human beings, for instance, obesity. Obesity is a condition whereby a person has high fat deposits in the body. It is mainly caused by consumption of high quantities of proteins and junk foods and failure to adequately break them down. These fats are not adequately broken down due to lack of exercises.
Work causes stress and affects health of a person while obesity also hinders achievement of quality health by people. People who do not work are likely to be obese than those who work because work may serve as exercise to the body. Furthermore, health effects of obesity are higher than health effects of stress. Therefore, though people who work are exposed to stress than those who do not work, people who do not work are more likely to be obese. Moreover, obesity has more health effects compared to stress hence people who work are more likely to achieve excellent health compared to those who do not work. Though excellent health comes with less stress, people who do not work are not healthier than those who work.