Beliefs on food and nutrition – Behavioral sciences explore the cognitive processes within organisms and the behavioral interactions between organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behavior through the study of the past, controlled and naturalistic observation of the present and disciplined scientific experimentation and modeling.
It attempts to accomplish legitimate, objective conclusions through rigorous formulations and observation. Generally, behavior science deals primarily with human action and often seeks to generalize about human behavior as it relates to society.
Beliefs on food and nutrition
Cultural Beliefs/Practice Related to Food & Nutrition
- Periodic fasting will help in cleansing the GIT. (Weekly by hindus, during the mouth of the Ramadan muslims, following lenth days by christian).
- Brshmins and vysyas will not consume garlic, onion and non- vegetarian foods.
- Avoiding cold food (butter- milk, curds, cucumber, guava fruits) item during common cold.
- In post-operative period, consumption of channa, dhal, and fatty foods to be avoided.
- Excess eating of mangoes will cause heat boils in the face and body.
- Pregnant women will eat mud/ash/chalk powder/lime powder as it enhances the normal development of the fetus.
- Beet root consumption enhances blood production in the body.
- Rich people consume more often, saturated food, which causes obesity.
- Alcoholism drug abuse is indications of rich class and complex society’s culture.
- Brinjal, egg, fish, will produce allergies.
- Eating raw vegetables like cucumber, carotene the night will reduce obesity, keeping the cut cucumber over the closed eyes will bring coolness to the eyes.
Cultural Beliefs & Practices during Pregnancy:
1. A women and her partner chose not to share the news of her pregnancy immediately but waited until her pregnancy was 3 month along.
2. The expectant mother is encouraged by the family to seek early prenatal care.
3. Positive thinking, images and music are encouraged during pregnancy for a healthy baby.
4. People of rural area believe that if a pregnant mother eats more than the baby in her womb will become big and it will make difficulties at time of her pregnancy.
5. People of rural areas use tabij or pani-pora or they used to feed the pregnant mother roots of trees as a sacred culture to protect both the pregnant mother and child from the harm of black-omen.
6. At the time of pregnancy the forced the mother to sleep only on her left side.
7. They don’t let the pregnant mother to go outside of home after evening.
8. At the time of solar or lunar eclipse the protects the mother from bad omen because they believe that it will harm the child in her womb.
9. Pregnant women will eat mud/ash/chalk powder/lime powder as it enhances the normal
development of the fetus.
10. It is prohibited in time of pregnancy to eat twin banana because she will deliver twin baby than.
Cultural Beliefs and Local/Traditional Practice During Breast Feeding
➤ One study of 120 cultures showed that 50 withheld the infant from the breast for 48 hours or more due to the belief that colostrum was “dirty”, “old”, or “not real milk”.
➤ A mother who may be reluctant to give colostrum feeds in a western hospital may be passionately committed to exclusive breastfeeding later on.
➤ Women in Kenya who are strongly instructed to avoid breastfeeding after quarrels to prevent “bad blood” entering the milk and affecting baby. This may mean breastfeeding is paused or a mother’s rights are infringed by family members or neighbors, yet she doesn’t speak up for fear of conflict.
➤ Several cultures traditional groups in Papua New Guinea and the Gogo tribe of Tanzania among them emphasize the need for the woman to be celibate during breastfeeding. A mother may be torn between her desire to breastfeed in an environment when food after weaning may not be plentiful – and her desire to satisfy her husband. A husband who is often not expected to also remain celibate.
Cultural Beliefs/Practices during Childbirth
1. In village pregnant mothers are unwilling to take modern treatment.
2. In village Muslims families believe that if the delivery will done by male doctor than it will be a sin so that they like to make the delivery in home rather than hospital.
3. When pregnant women feel the labour pain they took her to atur ghor (house).
4. They placed the placenta into the land because they believe that it will save the new born baby from any kind of harm.
5. When it started labour pain of a pregnant mother in our rural area, uneducated midwifes keep pregnant mother u tern direction and give small punch on their buttok cause there is superstition that it help deliver a child safely.
6. In village they will not provide any food for the pregnant women from the start of labour pain till the baby is born.
7. In hindu families of the village they made the mother and the new born baby to stay nearly one month in atur ghor.
Cultural Practices Which Have Beneficial Health Effects
1. Getting up early in the morning and bathing.
2. Drinking tulsi, water every morning.
3. Drinking water stored in earthenware pot.
4. Early to bed, early rise.
5. Periodic fasting for cleaning the gastrointestinal (GI) tract.
6. During the time of stress, the individual appeals to God to get moral support and protection.
7. Circumcision of Muslim male child reduce urinary tract infection.
Cultural Changes
Society strives its continuity and existence according to the environmental conditions of its surrounding. People have been descending down from generation to generation with the addition of new ideas and objects. This dynamic process of society enhances culture with refreshment and for every generation a new culture than for the previous. A stagnant society is dead but there is none today how so primitive it may be.
Technological developments and social changes in the form of ‘evolution’ and ‘progress’ of any rate exist there as the adjustment factors change them according to the environmental conditions. Hence the societies and cultures are undergoing changes with a continued process.
Definition of Cultural Changes:
According to Horton & Hunt:
“Changes in the culture of society is called cultural change.”
According to Kingsley Davis:
“Cultural changes embarrasses occurring in any branch of culture including, art, science, technology, philosophy etc. as well as changes in the forms and rules of social organization.”
According to David Dressler and Donald Cams: “It is the modification or discontinuance of existing ‘tried’ and ‘tested’ procedures transmitted to us from the culture of the past, as well as the introduction of new procedures.”
Sources of Cultural Change
1. Discovery: Discovery is a new perception of an aspect of reality that already exists.
2. Invention: Invention is the combination or new use of existing knowledge to produce something that did not exist before
3. Diffusion: Diffusion is the spreading of cultural traits from group to another group.
4. Acculturation.
5. Assimilation: It is the process of combination of two cultures in to one culture with comprising cultural traits.
Causes of Cultural Changes:
David Dressier and Donald Cams have made the following observations with regard to the causes of cultural change
1. Sometimes members of a society are often confronted by customs that differ from those which they have learnt to accept.
2. New customs and practices are likely to be more readily adopted under two conditions:
- If they represent what is viewed as socially desirable and useful and
- If they do not clash with pre-existed and still valued customs and practices.
3. It is widely observed that even if the people accept the new customs and practices, they do not completely abandon their traditional culture.
4. Changes in culture are always superimposed on existing culture especially during culture contact.
5. Changes in culture always relative. We do not have a “changed” culture but only a “changing culture” strictly speaking.
6. All the cultural changes are not equally important. Some changes are introduced to culture because they are considered necessary for human survival.
7. Still it could be observed that some cultural changes originally meet neither a “survival need” nor an “acquired need” of a people.
8. It is a fact of common observation that crisis tends to produce or accelerate cultural changed
9. Cultural change is cumulative in its total effect.
10. Cultural change leads to chain reaction.
Health
Definition of Health:
The World Health Organization (1948) provided the widely accepted definition of health which is as follows:
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”
Or
During the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion in 1986, the WHO said that health is:
“A resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities.”
Changing Concept of Health:
A brief account of the changing concepts of health is given below-
A. Biomedical concept: A person was considered as healthy if he was free from disease or absence of disease. This concept is known as the biomedical concept.
a) This concept is based on germ theory of disease
b) Criticism: role of environmental, social, psychological and cultural determinates of health are ignored.
B. Ecological concept: The ecologists viewed health as a dynamic equilibrium between men his environment and disease a mal-adjustment of the human organism to environment. The ecological concept raises two issues:
a) Imperfect man
b) Imperfect environment
C. Psychological concept: Health is not only a biomedical phenomenon, but one which is influenced by social, psychological, cultural, economic & political factors of the people concerned.
a) Social factor:
- Poverty
- Illiteracy
- Habits and lifestyles (Smoking, Drugs, Multiple sex partners etc.)
b) Psychological factor:
- Anxiety
- Tension
- Emotional breakdown
D. Holistic concept: The holistic model is a synthesis of all the above concepts. The holistic approach implies that all sectors of society have an effect on health.
Health Belief Model:
The Health Belief Model (HBM) is a psychological model that attempts to explain and predict health behaviors. This is done by focusing on the attitudes and beliefs of individuals. The HBM was first developed in the 1950s by social psychologists Hochbaum, Rosenstock and Kegels working in the U.S. Public Health Services. The model was developed in response to the failure of a free tuberculosis (TB) health screening program.
Figure: Health Belief Model
Components of Health Belief Model:
1. Perceived susceptibility to a disease, e.g. smokers suspect of cancer.
2. Perceived seriousness of a disease and its effect on individual lifestyle, e.g. cancer effects on lifestyle.
3. Perceived value of action, e.g. preventive measures or curative measures.
Factors That Influence Health & Illness Relate To Human Dimensions:
The factors that influence health and illness related to the person in terms of the human dimensions are as follows:
1. Physical dimension,
2. Emotional dimension,
3. Environmental dimension,
4. Intellectual dimension,
5. Socio-cultural dimension,
6. Spiritual dimension.
A. Physical dimensions: It includes genetic makeup, age, developmental level, race and sex. All are parts of individuals, which strongly influence health status, and health practices.
B. Emotional dimension: It express that how the mind and body interact to affect body function and to respond to body; emotion also influences health. Long-term stress affects the body system and anxiety affects health habits. Calm acceptance and relaxation can actually change the body responses to illness.
Figure: Factors affecting health and illness
C. Environmental dimension: It has many influences on health and illness. Housing, sanitation, climate and pollution of air, food and water are aspects of the environment, which causes illness.
D. Intellectual dimension: It encompasses cognitive abilities, educational background and past experiences. These influence client responses to teaching about health and reactions to nursing care during illness. They also play major role in health behaviors.
E. Socio-cultural dimension: It includes individual’s economic level, educational status, lifestyle, family, and culture. These are all with influence on the health and illness of the people.
F. Spiritual dimension: Spiritual and religious beliefs and values are the important components of how a person behaves in the health and illness. It is important that nurse respects these values and understand their importance to the individual client.
New Philosophy of Health;
In recent years, we have acquired a new philosophy of health, which may be stated as below –
- Health is a fundamental human right.
- Health is the essence of productive life & not the result of ever increasing expenditure on medical care.
- Health is intersectoral.
- Health is an integral part of development.
- Health is central to die concept of quality of life.
- Health involves individuals, state and international responsibility.
- Health and its maintenance is a major social investment.
- Health is world-wide social goal.
Dimension of Health
Major Dimension:
- Physical dimension.
- Mental dimension.
- Social dimension.
- Spiritual dimension.
Minor dimensions;
- Emotional dimension.
- Vocational dimension
- Others;
✓ Philosophical dimension.
✓ Cultural dimension.
✓ Socio-economic dimension.
✓ Educational dimension.
✓ Environmental dimension.
✓ Nutritional dimension.
✓ Curative dimension.
✓ Preventive dimension.
Positive Health:
The state of positive health implies the notion of “perfect functioning” of the body & mind. It conceptualizes health biologically, psychologically and socially.
A person who enjoys health at three planes i.e. good physical, mental and social well-being is said to be in a state of positive health.
Determinants of Health:
The factors which influence health lie both within the individual and externally in the society in which he or she lives, are collectively known as determinants of health.
Determinants/ Factors of Health:
1. Biological determinants
2. Behavioral and socio-cultural conditions
3. Environment
4. Socio-economic conditions
5. Health services
6. Aging of the population
7. Gender
8. Other factors.
A Biological determinants: The physical and mental traits of every human being are to some extent determined by the nature of his genes at the time of conception.
B. Behavioral and socio-cultural conditions:
a) The way people live,
b) Cultural pattern.
c) Personal habits.
d) Life style.
C. Environment:
a) Physical environment: Air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution. Food, excreta, refuse.
b) Biological: Human being, plants, animal, micro-organisms, insects, housing.
c) Psychosocial: Customers, occupation, religion, education.
D. Socio-economic conditions:
a) Economic status.
b) Education.
c) Occupation.
d) Political system.
E. Health and family welfare services:
a) Immunization of children.
b) Provision of safe water supply.
c) Maternal and child health care.
F. Gender: Women’s health is an important issue for the society.
Indicators of Health:
1. Mortality indicator
- Crude death rate.
- Mortality indicator
- Expectation of life.
- Infant mortality rate
- Under-5 proportionate mortality rate.
- Maternal mortality rate.
- Disease specific mortality
- Proportional mortality rate
2. Morbidity indicators
- Incidence and prevalence.
- Notification rates.
- Attendance rates at out-patient departments, health centers etc.
- Admission, re-admission & discharge rates.
- Duration of stay in hospital.
- Spells of sickness or absence from work of school
3. Disability rates
- Event-type indicators;✓ Number of days of restricted activity.
✓ Bed disability days.
✓ Work loss days within a specific period.
4. Nutritional status indicators:
- Anthropometric measurements of pre-school children e.g. weight & height, mid-arm circumference.
- Heights (sometimes weights) of children at school entry.
- Prevalence of low birth weight.
5. Health care delivery indicators;
- Doctors-population ratio.
- Doctors nurse ratio.
- Population bed ratio
- Population per health center/sub-center.
- Population per traditional birth attendant
6. Utilization rates
- Proportion of infants who are “fully immunized” against the 6 EPI diseases
- Percentage of the population using the various methods of family planning.
- Bed-occupancy rate in hospital.
- Average length of stay in hospital.
- Patient turnover ratio
7. Indicators of social & mantel health:
- Homicide rate.
- Suicide rate.
- Drug and alcohol abuse rate.
- Family violence rate.
- Battered baby and battered wife syndromes rate.
- Road traffic accidents rate.
- Smoking rate.
8. Environmental indicators
- Proportion of population having access to safe water supply.
- Proportion of population having access to safe sanitation.
- Indicators relating to pollution of air & water, radiation, solid wastes etc.
9. Socio-economic Indicators:
- Rate of population increase
- Per capita GNP (gross national product)
- Level of unemployment.
- Dependency ratio.
- Literacy rates especially female literacy rates.
- Family size.
- Housing- the number of persons per room.
- Per capita calorie availability.
10. Health policy indicators
- Proportion of GNP spent on health services.
- Proportion of GNP spent on health related activities.
- Proportion of total health resources devoted to primary health care.
11. Indicators of quality of life
- Infant mortality rate.
- Life expectancy at age one.
- Literacy
12. Other indicators:
- Social indicators- population, family formation, families etc.
- Basic needs indicators- calorie consumption, access to water, life expectancy etc.
- Health for all indicators.
Definition of Illness:
Illness is a subjective state of the person who feels aware of not being well.
Or
Illness is a broad term that defines the poor state of mind, body, and, to a certain extent, spirit. It is the general feeling of being sick or unwell (outside the person’s belief of good health).
Health & Illness Continuum:
- The individual’s state of health is one of continual change. He moves back and forth from health to illness and back to health again. His condition is rarely constant. He may wake up feeling great, develop a headache mid-morning, and feel fine again by noon.
- The health-illness continuum (see figure 2-1) illustrates this process of change, in which the individual experiences various states of health and illness (ranging from extremely good health to death) that fluctuate throughout his life.
Figure: The health-illness continuum,
- As we previously stated, health, just as life itself is a process of continual change. And we must continually adapt to these changes in our lives in order to maintain good health and well-being. It is our adaptation or response to that change, rather than the change itself, that affects our health.
- For example, two students just found out about a big test tomorrow, for which they are completely unprepared. One student responds to this stressful situation (stressor) by going home, getting his books out, and starting to study. The other student breaks out into a sweat, and spends most of the evening fretting over this outrage and imagining what will happen to him if he doesn’t pass the test. No doubt, this student is doing more damage to his health than is his friend. And, considering the time and energy he is expending on worrying (and not studying), he may experience even more stress when they receive their grades!
- Adaptation and effective functioning, even in the presence of chronic disease, can be considered a state of wellness. A person may be in perfect physical condition, but feel too tired and “blue” to go to work, while his co-worker, a diabetic, is at work, functioning fully and accomplishing his job.
NOTE: Death occurs when adaptation fails completely, and there is irreversible damage to the body.
Read More….