HEALTH SOCIILOGY Class & Illnessrelated behaviour - Essay Example

Health Sociology and illness Smoking has been around since 5000 BC when it was used in religious rituals and later adopted as a social tool (Gately 2003). Seen as a method of instilling a pleasurable sensation in its early use, smoking is seen by many as a positive reinforcement, thus allowing the entire act to become a stimulus. However, many believe that smoking is carried out in greater numbers by the poor than the rich. This creates an idea of smoking being a part of the working class individuals lives.

The following factors will discuss why the working class chooses this harmful act responsible for causing a variety of different diseases: lung cancer and cardiovascular illnesses. Thus, manual working class groups are seen as a more probable victim of this habit rather than the management or professional classes. The first and foremost social factor that affects the habitual addiction to smoking is the environment surrounding the individual. The living conditions of these workers are poor and dire.

Many live in stressful lives in squalid and overcrowded homes. The best escape from all of this frustration is smoking which provides a stimulus to forget other problems. Also, in an atmosphere where each individual seeks to pass time using smoking, it is difficult for an individual to escape the vicious pattern unharmed. Another aspect attached the poor living conditions are how the families live in such close quarters that the children are affected by the adults. For the child to see a older individual smoking is the sort of parental and adult model that is set out for them.

As they continue with life, the environment around them forces them into a state of peer pressure that instills smoking as a habit (Pedersen and Lavik). Another factor affecting smoking is the varying degree of education given to the different classes in a society. While the upper classes get the knowledge useful in their choices, the lower ones lack this kind of proper education (Layte and Whelan). Thus, they are incapable of knowing the dangers and problems related to smoking. Not only does this prevent them from making safe and careful decisions in their lives but it also shows the huge impact played by education in creating a protective society, equal to all individuals living in it.

This means that the working classes are greatly affected with the addiction to smoking because a huge number of them are unaware of the problems attached to the habit. Only an equitable education system can remove such a problem. Culturally, smoking is part of the conditions of the working class individuals' lives. Many are involved in jobs and lives which make no moves to restrict or prohibit smoking. Thus, smoking is seen as a determinant to fit into the culture of the working strata. Thus, smoking is a factor that is affected by the social group an individual belongs to.

It can be prevented if effective measures are taken. Studies conducted by British Heart Foundation show that 35% of manual workers tend to smoke compared to the 10% professional workers (2006). With numbers like these it is evident that the habit of smoking takes a great toll of the working classes and moves should be made to educate and prevent this habit. BibliographyBritish Heart Foundation (2006), Cigarette smoking by sex and socio-economic classification, 2006, Great Britain, General Household Survey, Available from: [Accessed July 28 2009]Gately I (2003), Tobacco: A cultural history of how an exotic plant seduced civilization, Grove Press Layte R and Whelan C (2006), Explaining Social Class Inequalities in Smoking: The Role of Education, Self-Efficacy, and Deprivation, European Sociological Review Advance, Oxford University Press.

Pedersen W and Lavik N (1991),Role modeling and cigarette smoking, Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. Volume 19, No 2, p 110-115