Impact of Culture on the Health of Individuals and Communities Essay

Introduction

Culture plays a dominant role in the determination and protection of the health conditions of the individuals as well as their families and the community as a whole. The cultural impact on health can be understood in terms of the promotion of the positive qualities, examination of the unique qualities and changing the negative qualities (Hall, 1999). The PEN – 3 model was developed with a view to centralize culture in the promotion of health and prevention intervention of diseases (Airhihenbuwa, 1995). The following case is one of the classic examples of the impact of culture on the health conditions.

Latinos and Obesity

Overweight and obesity lead to certain kinds of cancers. It is observed that Hispanics/Latinos, the largest ethnic minority group in the United States (Pollard & O’Hare, 1999) is exposed to these health conditions of overweight and obesity and is therefore prone to the cancerous diseases being caused by this health problem. 27% of these people live below the poverty level (Pollard & O’Hare, 1999).At least 73% of the Latinos are found to be of overweight and obese (Kumanyika, 1994). Diet, physical activity and body image are the three factors that cause obesity. Unfortunately, many of the Latinos have an unhealthy diet.

Apart from being obese, Latinos have more risk-taking behavior, which lead to other health issues like diabetes, hypertension and alcoholism. They do not have higher levels of physical activities. On the top, they hold a general cultural value in being a degree overweighing than other people (Sanchez-Johnsen). All these conditions constitute the cause for obesity and overweight among them. Ethnic identity with the associated cultural aspects has thus been found to be one of the reasons for increasing the chances of these people getting cancerous diseases.

There are certain factors responsible for causing obesity among Latinos. The first one is the poverty. Poverty is the driving force in the culture and poor people always tend to be heavy. Acculturation is another factor that led to this health issue. Since the Latinos assumed the values of white population for themselves, they have become heavier. With this assumption, they tend to eat more fried foods and less amount of fruits. Low socio-economic status of Latinos prevent them from having low-fat dietary practices, which are unaffordable for them. Their intake of meat is also high as compared to the white population. Generally, the food habits of Latinos are varied and lead to obese conditions.

Apart from the food habits, cultural beliefs like “fatalismo”, (implying the idea that “whatever happens happen”) also lead to obesity and overweight. With this feeling, average Latino thinks that he is going to get cancer or other disease in the same way his parents had it and his grandparents got it. Language issue is another factor for causing obesity, as it is difficult to make them understand the evils of obese health conditions. Maternal nutrition knowledge and feeding habits also influence obese and overweight conditions (Foreyt, 2003).

Thus, prevalence of obesity in one of the largest ethnic minority groups in the United States is very high due to many of the cultural factors described in this paper and is accompanied by lack of moral pressure to reduce the overweight. Most of the Latinos do not appear to be caring about losing weight and continue to have the food habits destroying their health. Therefore the prevention of the obesity and overweight among the Hispanic/Latinos in the US is a good case for practicing PEN- 3 Model healthcare,

References

Airhihenbuwa, C. O. (1995). Health and Culture Beyond the Western Paradigm. Thousand Oaks California: Sage Publications.

Foreyt, J. P. (2003). Cultural Competence in the Prevention and Treatment of Obesity: Latino Americans. Web.

Kumanyika, S. K. (1994). Obesity in Minority Population. Obesity Research , 2 (2), 166-82.

Pollard, K. M., & O’Hare, W. P. (1999). America’s Racial and Ethnic Minorities. Population Bulletin , 54 (3), 1-34.

Sanchez-Johnsen, L. (n.d.). Lationos, Culture and Obesity. Web.