Sociological Approaches To Health And Ill Health

Sociological Approaches To salutaryness And Ill HealthIn this assignment I w ailing look at the dissimilar sociological perspectives on health and ill health as well as the different definitions of it.Defining health is re everyy difficult as on that point argon some different views. There have been some criticisms of the defining of health. The definition of health has changed over the years. For exampleIn Mauritania a small province in N.W. Africa, obesity is con billetred a sign of beauty. Girls atomic number 18 force-fed so that they grow up with that obesity look.In the western country obesity is seen as ill health, unattractive and associated with negative stereotypes.Obesity is soothe seen as a sign of wealth and well- be in many parts of Africa.Functionalist ApproachThe running(a)ist approach on health and ill health derives from Talcott Pearson. Talcott saw ill health as a threat to troupe and believed that good health was essential in parliamentary procedure f or society to be still functioning. He said that ill health affects our ability to do create and cause our roles in society. For that reason he said that for a soul to be considered sick in that location are several expectation to be met. He called the expectations the sick role which indicated how large number are supposed to be like when they are ill and how they should be entailing. The sick role divides into dickens groups the rights and the obligations.RightsThe sick mortal is free from any social roles. For example work, or school, they should be allowed to light upon the day polish off in order to put down back to normalThe sick mortal is not responsible for their suss outObligationsThe person should seek for medical assistance. For example going to the doctors to get analyse up and get treatmentThe person should not like existence sick. For example the person should not fake macrocosm sick honest because they get attention as well as get a day off their no rmal duties.However the sick role backfires sometimes as people tend to lose patience with the sick person or deny that they are sick for reasons such as thirst the role. For example family, they may show sympathy at the beginning exactly after a while they lose patience with the sick person and assume he/she is seeking attention or is a hypochondriac. loss Feminist ApproachMarxist approach believes that the health and social manage service wangle services are provided just to help the bourgeoisies cook profit. The Marxist believe that the health and social care of the service users should be introduceed in order for them to quickly get back to work so that they can make profit for the bourgeoisies. In order to maintain the social hierarchy the government deliberately ignores the selling of products which can slander ones body for example, cigarettes, tobacco etc. In the modern world I believe the hierarchy is shaped into a pyramid with a fewer elite at the top controlling and manipulating those below which allows the rich to of all time be the rich and the poor to be the poor giving no chance for movement in the hierarchy.Feminist writers believe that the medical vocation and pharmaceutical industries have given a low priority to evolution male contraceptive pills which have fewer harmful side effectuate compared to contraceptives used by women. This shows that society is exploiting women and increase anxiety and stress for women there by suppressing their abilities and making life outside of family harder so that women resume their vista as a housewife. For example a women experiencing depression or illness at her workplace will perform badly therefore in comparison to males who are performing better and getting better get out she will seem inferior .This clearly shows how society and its medications are purposely full of side effects to marginalise women, so that the males will be more dominant.While Marxist and Socialist Feminist argue that women are not receiving the same medications as males. Women have two roles, also cognise as double day which signifies two roles women have to undertake. First of all as a housewife, taking care of her domestic duties, and the other as a worker/employer. Sociologist Doyal suggests that it is the fact that women have two roles in society, that they getting sick. Personally I believe it is due to the medication we receive as women, which could otherwise be given to men with far less side effects. It is the due to the lack of consideration and its need for male dominance that women are sick.Even now in this modern day the definition of health is not clear. There are two opposing theories one being that health represents the absence of disease the other being not only an absence of disease except also a claim of physical, mental, spiritual and social well-being. The negative pattern is the absence of disease which would mean that the person needs to be diagnose with a disease in order to be unhealthy. However the positive definition which is provided by the world Health Organization (WHO)in 1974not merely an absence of disease but also a state of physical, mental, spiritual and social well-being inwardness that you dont have to be diagnosed with a disease you could be mentally ill ,physically, spiritually ,socially, emotionally, or intellectually. So therefore the health and social care sectors usually take a holistic assessment in order to address the needs of the whole person rather than single issues. (Btec train 3 health and social care book 3).Sociologist Mildred Blaxter carried a vainglorious survey and then identified three definitions to health and well-beingvirtuoso positive definition regarding health as being fit two being a negative definition Regarding health as being free from pain or discomfortAnd experiencely a functional definition regarding health in terms of being able to perform certain, day-to-day tasksConcepts of ill healthClinica l IcebergOne concept of health is Clinical Iceberg this is a term used to sop up unreported illness. The statistics produced by the government and the doctors have a 94% off unreported illness missing from the statistics. For example Lyme Disease is one of the highest unreported illnesses that is unreported. A survey last month for the Everyman Male Cancer commove suggested that nearly twice as many men as women had not visited their GP in the past year. (http//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8154200.stm last accessed 22/10/12 1802) (http//www.anh-usa.org/lymedisease/ last accessed 27/12/12 )So therefore this could be one of the reason why there are so many unreported illness because men do need see a doctor because the try and live up to the saying of men dont cry and they are tough so this leads them to think that if they do go to the doctors that they are weak.ImpairmentImpairment is the restrictions to our day-to-day activities caused by physical or mental dysfunctions for examp le Down syndrome a learnedness difficultly.DisabilityDisability is seen by Tom Shakespeare as restrictions that arise for a person with impairments because society does not take into account the needs of people with impairment for example someone in a wheel tame not having ramps in buildings or someone deaf not having perceive aids available. However some people may refer this to change environment which suggests an environment where facilities for the impairments are not available for people to take full part in social life.