Tag Archives: Society and lifestyles

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Ideology and Prejudice

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On the 6th of March within the Society and lifestyles lecture  we learned about Ideology and Prejudice. Explaining the term ‘Prejudice’ would give quite a complex explanation. To my understanding, prejudice are actions that are mostly always negative where assumptions or ideas are made which tend to be stereotypical towards certain groups of people or individuals. If I were to be more specific about the meaning of prejudice then it would be aimed more at negative feelings or opinions towards others all centred around a particular race, gender, sex, religion, disability, language, and nationality. These are all examples of prejudice which are commonly identified in modern society today and impact on individual’s lives massively. These judgements that are made are usually not a result of actual experience or reason.

Discrimination is usually a result of an individual acting on their prejudice too much. This results in the individuals behaviour or actions to be mostly negative which is aimed at another individual or group of people. This is mainly directed on factors such as social class, race, sex and many more. This is where there is a difference between prejudice and discrimination as someone can be prejudiced towards a particular group but do not discriminate against them.

Social and cultural literacy is very important for all individuals to experience as it gives us a feel of social responsibility and also displays active citizenship in people. Experiencing and having social and cultural literacy allows individuals to be more familiar with things such as discrimination and prejudice.

Subcultures are groups which have values and norms which are distinct from those held by most individuals in society. Culture makes up a society’s expression through beliefs and material things. There are many examples of culture such as language, ideological values, gender roles, religion and artistic expression emphasised through things such as paintings. Society directly refers to individuals who communicate and interact with a shared culture. Within every society there may be many different cultures, and also many different subcultures. Subcultures are values and norms which are unique from those of the majority and are held in groups within a wider society. Subcultures include things such as hippies, goths, bikers etc.

Social Norms are common expectations related to behaviour that are known as to be culturally and socially fascinating and acceptable. Norms are customary but lack the formal status of rules. A wide variation can be seen within these norms across societies, groups and cultures. Social Norms can also be seen to influence discrimination and prejudice in society.

Conformity and Non conformity is evident when individuals act in particular ways, this can be seen as a result of pressure from groups and this can either be real life and experiences or imagined by the individual(s).

Worldview is a set of coordinated and an accepted set of ideas which attempt to describe the social, cultural and the physical world such as the people around us in everyday life in society.

Ideology refers to a set of beliefs that are held by an individual, a group or society. This can be explained as a collection of unconscious and conscious ideas which can impact on individuals goals, beliefs, motivations and expectations within society. This term specifies to the body of rules, myths, symbols which are held by a certain group that mentors group and individual actions or behaviours.

 

 

 

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Pengilly and Doud (2000) Stress Hardiness

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There are many factors that can negatively impact individual(s) health within society, one being stress. Stress achieves a very negative impact on individuals as this often results in depression which shows that stress and depression must be linked and that they both work in turn with one another. This therefore shows that high-hardiness individuals are actually less likely to have signs of depression when stressed compared to that of low hardiness individuals.

Hardiness was also found as a factor which can negatively impact on individuals health as it was used to moderate the relationship between stress and depression. This can be said as high stress low hardiness individuals were more depressed than were low stress–low hardiness individuals. From the reading I seen that Individuals with high hardiness also had similar levels of depression regardless of the level of stress that they experienced.

Commitment was found as a factor which negatively impacted health as the conditional affects of commitment on depression was significant. This could be due to individuals having high anxiety or stress towards the thought of committing to someone or something.

Major life events such as the experience of normal life transitions that usually always happen such as retirement and moving as well as the experience o events that may not seem so normal such as divorce or job loss. The reading says how  these such major life events have also been explained as those that damage usual activities either awfully or can be very long time damage and pain. This could then result to further health complications such as chronic anxiety or depression which are also linked to further health difficulties.

Methods that can support a healthy lifestyle for individuals include self help support groups or grouped therapy where individuals can go and communicate with individuals who used to feel stressed and depressed who may have got over it and they can share experiences and how they came to improve and get over these hurdles. Another example could be support groups for individuals to turn to when in need, such as for encouragement, motivation, where it could be a non judgemental environment, with sense of trust and a need for knowledge. Individuals could set small goals so that they can improve bit by bit instead of trying to tackle it all at once which would most likely result in more stress. Within the area of commitment it would also be beneficial if individuals were educated more and  attention could be profitably paid which could result in increasing an individual’s hardiness levels so that they can handle stress and depression more significantly.

 

 

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Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory

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From completing the Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory my score was 115, therefore I fall into the category of ‘150 or less’ which means a relatively low amount of my life should change and ill have a lower susceptibility to stress or an induced health breakdown. My score of 115 actually came as a surprise to me, I thought I was going to be in the second or the third category due to how much things have changed within the past few years especially since last year. So therefore, I was happy about the category I ended up in as I did expect worse.

I would say one of the signs of stress in my life  could be university doing assignments and exams for the first time as I just feel sometimes I don’t know what is expected of me as it’s one of the first times I have ever had to produce work for university and know that it’s much more independent and  a higher quality of work is expected. In the past year, I have also experienced problems with being overly anxious and nervous when doing several things which should be fairly easy for me to do but do not feel easy. These include things such as presenting as my nerves just get the better of me, I also have a very bad habit of stressing about stress before I even have something to stress about as I overthink the situation many times in my head to the point I couldn’t be anymore stressed if I tried. I also have a sleeping disorder called narcolepsy and due to lack of sleep and my lack of concentration it can sometimes get very frustrating when coming to studying and having a fairly high lack of understanding which can sometimes just add to the stress that was already there about exams.

I can combat the stress in my life by visiting my nurse at the hospital who is specialised on narcolepsy where I can speak through things with her and also meet up with other men/women across Scotland who also have the same condition. This makes me feel more at ease as I know they understand and can contribute to the discussion effectively due to this. This allows for me to help to support these people and I know that it’s non judgemental due to them feeling the same way. I have a good relationship with my family and friends and can talk about things that may be bothering me with them and I know I can lean on them whenever I need too. Lastly I feel that including physical fitness into my routine could be really helpful for combating stress and getting time away from the triggers of stress.

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The Glasgow Effect

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The Glasgow Effect covers deprived UK cities which experience different health outcomes such as Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool. Within deprived neighbourhoods in Glasgow, premature deaths were more than 30% higher with all deaths about 15% higher than Liverpool and Manchester. This high amount of mortality was seen across the whole population, excluding the very young people but was seen in both men and women. Regarding premature mortality, mostly for men under 65 pointed at the use and consumption of alcohol and drugs. However, deprivation is not enough to explain the large number of death experienced in Glasgow compared to Manchester and Liverpool. The outcome of this shows that Glasgow, although fairly similar to Manchester and Liverpool to have worse health outcomes due to Glasgow’s socio-economic qualities.

Glasgow, along with Manchester and Liverpool all experience big amounts of poor health and deprivation. Standardised mortality ratios were figured out for Glasgow and also Liverpool and Manchester, not intentionally for age, sex and income deprivation decline in these three main cities. However, all of them were studied separately and there was only a small difference in the results between the three cities. The main causes of mortality that were identified were lung cancer, diseases of the circulatory system, injury brought on by the individual(s), suicide, deaths related to alcohol consumption and lastly drug related deaths.

When comparing Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow – results show that deprivation levels in the three cities was almost the exact same. Within Glasgow, high amounts of death was the greatest in individuals who worked from 15 years old to 44 years old and 45 to 64 years old. However, there were much higher rates of mortality within the 45 years old to 64 years old.  Cancers and Diseases of the circulatory system resulted in the higher majority of deaths. Deaths within  women In Glasgow which were from suicide were more than two times more than the females in Manchester and Liverpool.

At the very beginning of the 20th Century there was only a small difference between the three cities rates. However, a broadening gap seen rates in Glasgow improving more slowly than rates in Manchester and Liverpool. This can be seen in the years for which data are available nearer the end of the 20th Century. Therefore, this could point out that the higher death rates, The Glasgow Effect is a fairly recent event.

Health behaviours such as smoking, binge drinking  and healthy eating show that there are only small differences in commonness levels of these behaviours. Levels of obesity are also very similar throughout the three main cities. However, regarding healthy eating, binge drinking, and obesity the differentiation area is within Greater Glasgow and not Glasgow city.

Several hypotheses have been made about ‘The Glasgow Effect’. One hypothesis  is that it could be driven by components of ‘societal breakdown’ among parts of Glasgow’s population. Alcohol, drugs and suicide mortality show huge differences in the amounts of self-harming behaviours in Glasgow compared to Liverpool and Manchester that may reflect elemental societal differences among parts of the population. Some other hypotheses which have been made are cultural differences, effects of migration, genetic factors and many more.

 

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To what extent are scottish people healthy?

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Scottish people are healthy to a fair extent. It’s not fair to say that all Scottish people are unhealthy as the way individuals chose to go about their lives varies massively. When it comes to diet however, the percentage of adults meeting the 5 a day recommendation has not changed much from 2003 to 2013 with a small increase from 21% to 22% which isn’t good enough for 10 years difference. Children require many fruit and vegetables in their diets to allow for proper functioning and growth, however in 2013 children actually consumed less portions of fruit and vegetables per day than adults with 2.7 portions. So it could be said that the vast majority of Scottish people have to improve on their diets to improve their health.

Within children’s physical activity, there is a decline in activity with increased age. From 2008 until 2013, with the expectation of 2012 this was mostly seen within girls than boys. During the ages of 5-7 years old the percentage of girls participating in physical activity was high at 81%. However during 13-15 years this declined to 51%. Physical activity is usually higher within boys as the percentages for them doing physical activity were 86% and this declined to 68%.  This shows that with age there is always a decline in physical activity and this has been seen throughout the years. Within schools and at home physical activity could be encouraged from parents and teachers which could result in better health outcomes for children and teenagers in Scotland as a whole.

Health in Scotland can also be affected by the intake of alcohol consumption. A person is established as drinking at hazardous or harmful amount of alcohol if they are a man drinking more than 21 units in a  week. For women drinking more than 14 units in a week could result in massive health disadvantages.  In 2013,  slightly over a fifth which was 22% of men and 16% of women drank at hazardous or harmful levels. This therefore shows that alcohol intake in Scotland can result in later health complications or problems as people tend to ignore the amount of alcohol that should be consumed. This is also a problem as excessive amounts of alcohol could result in drink driving, premature death, drug use and making stupid decisions. However, again it isn’t fair to say that everybody in Scotland consumes too much alcohol which would have a disadvantage to their health.  These three examples of how health may be affected does point more to Scotland being unhealthy than healthy.