Health and Healthcare - Assignment Example

Accessibility to health and nutrient food resources by the rich and certain classes have been major parameters for the health and long life expectancy of the people in developed countries. Indeed, there are few spheres of social life untouched by social class. The only difference is that while rich can use their resources to treat their diseases, the poor are left to languish and die due to poverty of resources. UK has large number of cases of lifestyles diseases including obesity, anorexia, bulimia across its population and the paper would primarily be discussing persistent health inequalities across social class.

The most amazing is the fact that while people are literally dying of malnutrition in under-developed and developing countries and lack accessibility to good healthcare due to poverty, there are increased instances of women and children, belonging to rich class, dying of forced dieting, anorexia, bulimia because they want to become thin! The vast contrast in the health and fitness in the various part of the world can also be contributed to broader socio-cultural and environmental imperatives that considerably impact our body and perception of health and illness.

Obesity, anorexia, smoking etc. are strongly influenced by the social perception of human body that may reflect environmental paradigms like current fashion, peer pressure, influence of celebrity, craze of fast food etc. Anorexia and other eating disorders are only found in affluent classes where resources abound. In UK, 1 to 2% of adult women are affected by anorexia and nearly 3% by bulimia, where food intake is followed by forced vomiting to maintain weight. Nearly 1.15 million of UK population is thus, is associated with diagnosed and undiagnosed eating disorder.

In the current times, cases of anorexia and bulimia have spread to non western world which can be mainly contributed to the advancing technology and globalization. Indeed, sociology of body is influenced by technology as people’s perception to their body has been changed due to media exposure that is increasingly showcasing human body as important part of social factors and experience. Plastic surgery to improve body parts, anorexia dissociate human body from being natural and adapt to body changes from artificial means.

With socialization of health and illness has emerged socialization of nature which broadly caters to the notion that people in the current times have becomes more informed and therefore are better equipped to make decisions on what they consider to be natural. The changing perspectives of medicines and healing have been major changes that are influenced by development and emerging new technologies. While health in bygone era was a family matter, today it has become a government concern because health is now linked to social development of society where people contribute to national wealth by being productive.

If they are ill, they deprive nation of good productive outcome as they are not fit to work due to illness. Hence, the human population was being seen as resource to be monitored. The census was introduced in the early twentieth century to see how changes in society impact on human demography vis-a-vis age, mortality, child bearing age, marriage age, life expectancy etc. This led to the concept that sexuality is most essential ingredient of national wealth as sexually but could also threaten its wealth.

Sexuality not linked to reproduction must be repressed. Compulsory sterilization of unfit became normal as