Race, ethnicity and cultures influence on health - Essay Example

Ethnicity is employed to classify people rooted on edifying attributes such as common ancestry, food penchants, language, and religion. Though some groups of people may share similar phenotypic attributes because of the shared ancestry, Williams (1997) denotes that the phrase ethnicity is normally used to emphasize social and cultural attributes in place of genetic ones. Race, culture and ethnicity are, in truth, social structures. The presumption that race replicates only genetic characteristics is imprecise.

Race, culture and ethnicity are continuously changing, making the comparison of the three variables, over time in a group of people, practically challenging. For example, classification of the increasing fraction of the United States population described as “mixed” or “other” makes it challenging to allocate individuals a race or an ethnic background (Caprio et al, 2008). Nonetheless, the communal significance issued to these structures to delineate the races and ethnic groups that have been handled and addressed in analogous manners rooted on deduced biological attributes, on top of the recognition that these categorizations have promoted differences in health care access and health, necessitating the continued use of race, culture and ethnicity. . Additionally, a low level of socioeconomic status is associated with diets with high levels of inundated cholesterol, carbohydrates and fat, which results to poor health of the people.

In addition, Caprio et al (2008), asserts that race and ethnicity can influence an individual’s health through their genes. As indicated earlier, individuals with similar ancestral similarities share similar biological attributes, which may dispose them to certain diseases. In most of the disorders that lead to high mortality rates in United States, such as “heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke”, genes and environmental aspects such as lifestyle, contribute immensely to making some individuals develop them (Caprio et al, 2008).

Child obesity is an increasing topic of the day among the non-white populations in both United Kingdom and United States, especially the African Americans. The causes for the high levels of commonness of obesity among the non-whites multifaceted and engross genetics, culture, physiology, socioeconomic status, environments and relations among these variables. According to Harris et al (2006), the prevalence of childhood obesity among the non-whites, particularly African Americans, surpasses that of other ethnic groups in United States.

Childhood obesity has been indicated by numerous researchers to have cropped in the early 1980’s. There have been notable theatrical changes in physical activity and nutrition habits among the American children, along with shifts in societal norms and demographics, concomitant with the augmented prevalence in childhood obesity. Socioeconomic factors such as the available income in a family have profound effect on a person’s health. Race and ethnicity affects the socioeconomic status of