Culture's Influence on Health: Diversity in Beliefs and Practices

Culture is the pattern of behaviour and thinking, people lives in a group to learn, create and share. Such as a group of people who lives and thinks in similar way. People's culture includes their beliefs, language, style of dress, their food and how they cook it, religion and the rules they live in. A Culture is: Founded on the ability to communicate using language ffor example, babies are born with an "inbuilt" basic structure of language with which they learn the language spoken by the people areound them;

Sgared, for example almost all the people living in a particular country celebrates many of the same holidays and wear similar clothes; and * Learned for example ,people have to learn and inherit many physical features and have certain behavioural instincts, but culture is cleared form other member of a group.

The way in which a person developed is therefore influenced by the values, traditions, and way of life and beliefs of the particular society or group in to which the person is born and brought up.

Get quality help now

Bella Hamilton

Verified writer

Proficient in: Belief

5 (234)

“ Very organized ,I enjoyed and Loved every bit of our professional interaction ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

Because most cultures do not exist in insulation, they tend to interact with people with different cultures (for example many people around the world use the sme technology, such as telephone and cars). The ability to exchange ideas and resources are usually aldhered to by members of that culture. It is important that, in any health and socail care setting, opportunities are provided to allow people of different culures and religious beliefs to maintain them. Cultural Definitions Some examples of ways in whivh ideas of health and well-being vary between cultures are given in the following section.

They ccover just some of the factors that affect health and well-being. Medical Practices There are some sorts of medical care that are believed in by some cultures and by not the others. One example is that of jehovah's Witnesses, who believes that the Bible is the world of God and that the Bible says that blood is special. They do not, therefore, to take in blood transfusions, believing that to take blood is unethnical as cannibalism. In many African societies, girls are circumcised as they enter adoloscence.

This involves removing parts of all the expternal of the reproductive organs. Food Reproduction The way in which a particular cultureproduces its food is one way in which their health can be affected. For example, the Hanunoo of the Philippines cut down a patch of forest, burn the plant material to release nutrients into the soil and plant gardens to grow food in after about three years they remove the other patch of the forest and allow their healthy environment in which to live as no pollution has been prodced. Diet

Diet affects the healthy and well-being of people and varies considerably from culture to culture. For example, Muslims have clear dietary restrictions and that are considered to be the direct command of God. They may not eat pork or products such as sausages, eggs, fried in bacon jellies, etc... Adult Muslims also fast furing Ramadan. Jewish people also consider pork or shellfish to be unclean and do not eat them. Food that is accepted in their diet is called "kosher" and strict Jews have separate areas of the kitchen to prepare meat and milk dishes.

Dress Muslim men and women adhere to traditions are expected to show modesty about their bodies, as hindus ans Sikhs. Muslim women traditionally wear long loose tunic (kameez), very long trousers (shalwar) and a long scark (chuni) or a saree. Muslim girls and women who wear western dress usually wear trousers or long skirts to keep thri legs covered. They wear gold wedding bangles when they get married. They may also wear cultural and religious jewellry.

Physical contact and cleanliness Strict Muslims forbid contact of any kind between people of their opposite sex unless thay are man and wife. This means that being examined by a male doctor or nurse (or being touched by a driver, male ambulance driver) can be very traumatic. These beliefs apply to hindu and Sikh people as well. However, Hindu religious practice also involved the removal of any physical pollution, such as urine, faeces, semen, and menstrual blood.