Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
What are some causes of food insecurity
What are some causes of food insecurity
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
More handpicked essays just for you.
What are some causes of food insecurity
What are some causes of food insecurity
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
I attended the event titled Unnatural Causes Bad Sugar on Thursday, October 22 from 6 to 7 p.m. The event centered on the ways in which many factors influence people’s lives and significantly impact health. The first part of the event centered on watching a short video that focused on the damage to health that Native American tribes faced after they lost their water. There was a large increase in the amount of Native Americans who got diabetes and who were dying. It was thought that biology and genes were one of the main causes behind the increase in diabetes, but in reality there were many other factors. Geographic location, social and economic class status, and income level has an impact on a person’s health.
The Unnatural Causes: Place Matters video, explains how environmental factors impact the health and lifespan of an individual. Additionally, the video also gives some history on how disadvantaged neighborhoods were created through government policies that favored Caucasian families. Also, the video focuses on Richmond, a disadvantaged city in California, and the detrimental health of its community members. Lastly, the video focuses on an improved and former disadvantaged neighborhood called High Point located in Seattle, Washington.
As a reader reads Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed on (Not) Getting by in America, they get an insight on what it is like to live a low income life. Ehrenreich proposes the argument in the introduction that poverty is a serious matter and just because one has a job does not mean they are not considered poor. She wants to persuade us to realize that American is not the land of opportunity as promised and portrayed and there are regular people who are struggling to live a comfortable life. Throughout her book she mentions her experiences with living on minimum wage, the hiring process, and how she felt being put in that position. After reading Ehrenreich’s book I am thoroughly persuaded.
The Reality of the Sense of Space In Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich takes a hands-on experimental approach in an attempt to immerse herself in the life of someone who lives on minimum wage. Although this is an experiment, Ehrenreich fully submerges herself in a lifestyle that she is not accustomed to. She remains open and honest to her readers, unveiling the difficulties of everyday life and the struggle to simply “make ends meet” in a world where prices are rising, but minimum wage remains stagnant. In relation to Ehrenreich’s experiences, a comparison can be made with Doreen Massey’s ideas of the degree of “mobility that influences the sense we have of space and place” (Massey p. 258). With Ehrenreich’s limited amount of resources, the world seems to be larger, as making her way around becomes more difficult.
Before we look at the different Social/Psychological Determinants of Health it is important firstly to define what a social determinant of health is. According to the World Health Organization (2017) “The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age.” These conditions are as a result of a wide range of factors that are ultimately governed by the way in which money, power and specific resources are shared at different levels including those at global, national and local levels. We have all been a part of and will experience different social determinants of health throughout our lives but it is the standard at which we experience these determinants that will ultimately lead onto them affecting our health or ultimately leaving us unaffected. The Social Determinants of Health which I am going to examine include • Education • Unemployment • Stress • Living Conditions • Cultural Norms.
For example, food insecurity is considered a major social determinant of health. Food Insecurity occurs when people do not have access to adequate and nutritional foods necessary to maintain a healthy lifestyle (Lombe et al, 2016). There is a direct relationship between one’s social economic status and the type of food they can afford. Households living below the poverty line lack the resources financially to afford healthier or organic food alternatives. What is more, they may not have the means of transportation to get to those supermarkets where healthier foods are sold.
The social issue that I picked is homelessness. Homelessness is a real issue, even if we don’t always see it. Homelessness doesn’t just mean you don’t have a roof over your head, it means you don’t have food, a good education, a healthy lifestyle, or a warm place to sleep every night. Some people don’t think very highly about homeless people, they think that it's their fault that they are where they are in life. Homelessness is going to end up becoming a bigger problem.