Health disparities - Research Paper Example

I come from a nuclear family of six. I have two sisters and one brother all of whom are college graduates and are athletes. My father and mother have been married for twenty eight years. My father works in real estate and my mother is a teacher in an elementary school. I embrace black history and the African American culture (Andrews et. al., 2010). An artifact of my personal culture of origin is the preparation of food by deep frying and seasoning food with ham, ham hocks, or gravy. Many of the rites of my personal culture of origin revolve around food.

Our cherished food called soul food is made of ribs, cornbread, fried pork chops, and chicken. Many people from my culture have a liking for butter, pork fat and salt as a flavour. Whereas these foods are good and we love them, they contain high amount of fat and sodium chloride that are associated with obesity and arthritis. Undeniably, people from my culture are fond of dining out and I would agree with studies that claim that we dine out two or more times weekly. Whereas this habit is desired and observed by many even from outside my culture, when we dine out, we take less serving of vegetables and fruits.

The fast foods we take from fast food restaurants are associated with high calories and low essential micronutrients. This is one of the factors that have been cited in explaining the high statistics of African American people struggling excessive weight gain (Karmeen & Kulkarni, 2004). Generally, most African Americans get at least three children. This has an advantage of providing the family members of an African American family with familial support that is good for esteem and health. A large family size is good for health especially in terms of providing care to each other even when ailing.

Despite this advantage, a large family size contributes to reduced nutritional care especially in light of the generally low socioeconomic status of many African Americans. This taxes the quality of health of