PSYC 320 Health and Fitness
Ethnicity violent deaths
African Americans in the US are much more likely than European Americans or Hispanics to die from accidents and homicides. European more likely to die from motor vehicle crashes and suicide. African men are disproportionately vulnerable to deaths and homicide, but gender differences are more prominent than ethnic differences
body image women
Contemporary ideal body image for women has developed over the past 100 years. Plumpness was once the ideal for women, signifying their health and wealth, but the standard has faded; overweight people are the targets of teasing and discrimination. Thin ideal arose during the early part of 20th century with the upper classes but has spread to all socioeconomi classes and diverse ethnic groups.
Cardiovascular Disease
Iincludes a group of diseases involving the heart and circulatory system, some of which are life threatening. Leading cause of death, accounting for 34% in the United States. Death from cardiovascular disease have decreased over the past 30 years, with deaths from strooke decreasing more rapidly than from heart disease.
drugs
cannot cure viral disease. THe viral STDs pose an even more serious problem than other types of STDs.
Risk factor
a condition associated with an increased probabiliy that a disorder will develop.
overweight
a stigma for men as well as for women, evidence indicates that men are also becoming body conscious.
Angina pectoris
cardiovascular disease that causes shortness of breath, difficulty in performing physical activities and cheast pain, but it poses no immediate threat to life.
Cancer in genetials and reproductive tract/ breast cancer
account for a large proportion of women's cancer deaths during their early and middle adult years. Indeed, before age 65, cancer is responsible for a greater proportion of women's deaths than is cardiovascular disease. The opposite pattern occurs for men, who are more vulnerable to premature death from CVD than cancer.
Tobacco products
accounts for 30% of cancer and the combination of diet, physical inactivity, and obesity for another 35%. Foods that contain known or suspected carcinogens, dietary components have been implicated in the development of cancer, especially a high fat diet. Substantial amount of evidence indicates that people who eat a high fat diet are at increased risk for cancers of the digestive tract, plus an elevated risk for breast cancer. Women eat lower fat diets and more fruts and vegetables than men, so this behviaoural difference in diet may explain part of the discrepancy in cnacer death rate
Occupational exposure to cancer
accounts for 4% of cancer deaths. Men are at increased risk for cancer due to their exposure to workplace hazards. Men are more likely than women to hold jobs that bring them into contact with carcinogens such as asbestos, benzene and various petroleum products. Exposure to such substances may also be a factor in the difference in cancer deaths between women and men.
Gender differences in risk behaviour
accounts for differences in violent deaths. men tend to behave in ways that increase their risks, such as heavy alcohol use, low seat belt use, occupational risk and illegal activities.
treatment for malignancies of reproduction system
accounts for only a small portion of the reproductive health care received by women, but a larger portion of that received by men. Women not only get preganant and bear children, they also have most of the responsibility for contraception. Menstruation is often painful, and some women experience pain sufficently serious to prompt them to consult health care professionals.
endometrical cancer
affects the uterine lining, but women can also develop cancer of the cervix, ovaries, vulva, vagina and fallopian tubes. None of these sites is the most common site cor cancer - breast cancer is. about 26% of the cancer diagnoses in women are breast cancer. From ages 15 to 74, cancers of the reproductive system are a major cause of mortality for women but not for men.
Ethnicity in CVD
also a factor in diagnosis; African Americans' symptoms are undertreated compared to symptoms of Whites, and African American women's symptoms are overlooked more than those of any other group. Thus, the bias against women interescets with biases of ethnicity.
Women's reproduction
and its medicalised treatment account for the increased use of medical services among women: pregnancy and childbirth are functions that now receive medical attention, require medical appointments, and prompt hospitalisation.
sexual behaviour in cancer
and reproduction also contribute to the development of cancer. Women who have sexual intecourse at an early age and have many sexual partners are at elevated risk for infection with the human papillomavirus, which causes cervical cancer. Women who complete pregnancies before age 20 are at decreased risk for breast cancer compared to women with later pregnancies and women who do not bear children. Early intercourse presents a risk for cancer, whereas early pregnancy is a protection against cancer.
body image discontentment
appears even in preadolescent children. As young as age 6 or 7, both girls and boys chose an ideal body thinner than their own, but girls made more extreme choices. Men and boys who see themsleves as overweight want to lose wieght, but even overweight men are not as dissatisfied with their body as women are
Providers of healthcare
both women and men are more likely to consult pharmacist than any other category of health care professional, and owmen make more inquiries than men, but those women may be fulfilling their role as family care giver. men experience more injuries due to accidents and sports participation, so they are more likely to seek the services of physiotherapists than are women. Women are more likely to see seek the services of chiropractors or nutritionalist. Women are also more likel to use alternative health care services, such as herbal medicine and acupunction.
infancy and early childhood
boys have more problem with their genitourinary system than girls do, rquiring more hospital stays and physician consultations for these problems. Beginning at age 15, girls make more viist to health care professionals, and require more hospitalisation regarding their reproductive systems.
STDS
can be bacterial, viral, fungal, or parasitic and many can be transmitted by vaginal, oral or anal sexual activity. These bacterial infections include gonorreha, syphilis, and chlamydia and they do not always produce symptoms that physicians find easy to diagnose in women Although antibiotics can cure bacterial infections, people without symptoms may not receive treatment until their disease are serious.
traditional gender roles
carry health risks. Women's morbidity is a factor that significantly decreases the quality of their lives, but their more frequnt illness are usually not ones that threnten their lives. Men, tend to experience health problems that are more likely to be life threatneing. One sex is sicker in the short run, and the other in the long run. The causes of death are similar. Two behaviours that relate to health and longevity are eating and exercising.
common in eating disorder
commong among women than men. 53% of girls and 38% of women were trying to lose weight compared to about 28% boys in high school and 24% men. Gender distribution is even more divergent for eating disorders. About 90% of people who are treated for eating disorders are women. Some research suggest that this figure represents an underestimate for men, who fail to receive diagnosis and treatment but expreicne disordered eating nonetheless.
Sturdy oak
component of the male gender role may be an important factor in men's avoiding health care; feelings of invulnerability and the belief that illness represents weakness lead men to ignore their health. Such avoidance can result in serious health problems that might be prevented or detected through routine physical exams.
body weight concerns
concerns with food and eating are a pervasive concern among young women, whereas men are releuctant to see the risk of being overweight. Women have more body fat than men, but the ideal body image for women demands thinness. Women often believe that they must diet ot achieve the desired body. Extreme concerns with weight and dieting can produce abnormal eating habits and series eating disorders. Growing consensus holds that body image and eating disorders are linked; an unattainably thin body image can prompt these unhealthy eating patterns. American culture socialise women to look at their bodies as objects, with emphasis on appearance, and an important part of that appearance is thinness. Women are more likely than men to be concerned, even obsessed with body image.
bulimia
consists of binge eating followed by some method of purging (induced vomiting or excessive laxtive use) to avoid gaining weight.
birth
critics have argued that women are burdened by giving birth in sterile, impersonal surroundings and being subjected to increasingly large hospital bills for these services. Birth is a natural process requiring no medical intervention. Comparing statistics from undeveloped countries and from US in the years before routine medical care during pregnancy and delivery, medicine has dramatically cut both maternal and infant mortality.
Crime rates
descrepancy is even more greater for crimes involving violence, in which men are more likely to both perpetrate crimes and be victims. Increase in lawbreaking among women in the past decades has not changed these figures; women's increase reflects primarily nonviolent crimes. Thus, homicide affects men to a larger degree than women and has an especially disproportionate impact on young African American
body image
the image of what constitutes an attractive female or male body currently emphasises thinness for women and muscularity for men.
Drinking gender
difference has decreased. But men are more often drinkers and more than twice as likely to binge drink than women. younger adults tend to be heavier drinkers. These gender and age differences in drinking patterns correspond to the differential risks of violent death. With increases in women's drinking have come increases in problem drinking among women. These changes have the potential to decrease the current female advantage in avoiding violent death in alcohol related accidents.
anorexia nervosa
disorder caused by self starvation in pursuit of thinness
Heart disease mortality
does not differ greatly over the lifespan. Women have more fatal strokes than men do, but men die from CVD at younger agest han women do. Discrepancy in heart disease deaths for men and women between ages 35 to 74 is especially dramatic, showing how much men are affected by premature death from CVD.
women numerous consultation
due largely to their complex reproductive systems. Now only do women get pregnant and bear children, but also their reproductive organs are subject to a greater variety of problems than males. Except for children under 15, girls and women receive more treatment for problems related to their reproductive systems than boys and men do.
expansion of medicine to include women
during childbirth, a role previously performed by midwives. Childbirth was not the only function to gain medicial attention; pregnancy came to be considered an appropriate area for regular medical care. Increasing number of contraceptive technologies during the 20th century depended almost exclusively on controlling women's fertility. Medical technologies came to be involved in all facets of women's reproductive health, from contraception during adolescence to hormone replacement during and after menopause
ideal body female
early research indicated that women perceived the ideal female body as thinner than their own, and they believe that men found thinner female bodies attractive. However, men's preference was not as thin as women believed. Depictions of thinness as attractive appear in the media and influence the development of unrealistic body images.
birth control pills
effective contraception, but women over 35, have significantly increased risks of stroke, and smoking multiplies this risk. Contraception is not only more often a woman's responsibilty, it is also more of a health threat to women
Marriage
enhance health and extend life, and men benefit more than women. Women provide emotional support and monitor their husbands' health related behaviours, both of which are important to health.
Office of research on women's health
focus on women's health issues, including monitoring research to ensure that women and minorities are included in health research in the US. Research announced that the effects of hormone replacement therapy for menopausal symptoms produced higher risks than benefits, and the trial was halted. This finding came as a surprise because of the widespread asumption that hormone replacement therapy not only relieved the symptoms of menopause but also lowered the risk of heart disease. The results indicated the opposite; women taking the combination of estrogen and progestin dexperienced higher rates of breast cancer, herat disease, blood clots, and stroke than women taking placebo. Older women who take hormones increase their risk of developing alzheimer's disease or other cognitive deficits in aging people.
Marriages
good marriages benefit the health of both partners, bad marriages may be detrimental to health, especially for women, but a cumulative disadvantage appeared for both men and women in unhappy marriages. That is, unhappy partners really make each other sick
Myocardial infarction
heart attack and stroke can be immediate fatal.
Men Cancer
higher overall death rates from cancer than women do for most types of cancer and at most age.
anorexia
highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorders; between 5 to 15% of anorexics starve themselves to death. Treatment for anorexia is difficult, anre relapses are common.
Hormones
if it was the main source of heart disease, then the gender differences in CVD would apply to all times and all societies, however the gender gap was much smaller during 1800s and began to widne during the 1920s and now begun to decrease. These changes suggest that social and behavioural factors are involved in this genetic differneces.
Personal perception of symptoms
important factor in seeking medical care. People who sense that their bodies are not working correctly are more likely to seek medical advice than those who sense no problems, and women are more likely than men report symptoms and physical distress. Perceiving symptoms is not sufficient to prompt a health care visit- most people experience some reluctance to beomce part of the health care system. This reluctance may spring from costs or accessibility of medical care and anxiety over a threatening diagnosis.
Summary CVD
including heart disease and stroke is the leading cause of death in the US and other industralised nations, accounting for about 34% of all deaths. Men die of heart disease at younger ages than women do, but overall, more women than men die of CVD. These gender differences in risk are not clearly understood, but both physiological and lifestyle differences between the two genders contribute to differences in risk.
development of eating disorders
influenced by personal and situational factors. Social class was once a distinguishing factors, but pressure for thinness now occurs in all social classes, among all ethnic groups and all societies around the world. Occupation is also another factor, with young women who are in modelling or dance school more likely to have eating disorders than comparable young women who careers do not demand thinness. Men: pressures from occupation or atheletic exert similar effects with wrestlers, runners, body builder, rowers and jockeys at specific risks.
exercise nad fitness
physical activity is a factor in the weight maintenance equation. When dieters eat less, their basal metabolism slows, and their bodies require fewer calories, which protects against starvation but makes weight loss difficult.
Gender specific medincine
investigates gender differences in the development and progression of disease and in respones to treatment. This specialty does not center on reprodcutive issues but rather focuses on research that will address leading causes of death such as heart disease and cancer, hoping to tailor more effective treatments to men's and women's specific biology.
Prostate cancer
kills almost as many men as breast cancer kills women, yet funding for breast cancer resaerch is many times greater than for prostate cancer. Men have not mobilised to exert the type of political pressure that spurs funding in the same way that women have, leaving men;s health issues with fewere vocal advocates. Men's advocacy influenced the development of gender specific medicine, but women health's researchers are also enthusiatic about this apparoch.
emotional females
lead physicians to discount the information provided by female patients and believe that women cannot participate in decisions concerning their own health and treatment. One study demonstrated: problems were the same for both male and female patients, any difference that appeared in the resulting attributions by physicians would be due to the use of stereotypes of women and men in making judgements. People saw women's health problems as the result of relatively uncontrollable biological and emotional factors but judged men's problems as the result of controllable behavioural and situational factors. These attributions have the potential to make big differences in health care. Women's health problems may be viewed as emotional problems, but men may receive blame for causing their own poor health
health problems in women
less often life threatening, producing the combination of poorer health but longer lives. Third explanation involves the difference in gender roles related to seeking and receiving health care
male gender role
lifestyle factors such as smoking and eating a high fat diet are risk factors for cardiovascular disease, and much more men than women smoke and eat diets in high fat. However, lifestyle factors alone do not account for gender differences in CVD.
Cigarette smoking
major factor in cancer death rates, especially lung cancer. Until recently, men smoked at much higher rates than women, but women's increased use of tobacco is a factor in the narrowing of the gender gap in longevity. Women have begun to develop lung cancer at increased rates, whereas men's rates have leveled off. in 86s, lung cancer surpassed breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer
reproductive health
many encounters with health care system for owmen do not involve illness but ocfur as a result of contraception, pregnancy, childbirth and menopause. Sex and reproductive issues have an impact that extends to other aspects of fucntioning, affecting emotion, beliefs and identity through the lifespan.
female gender role
may likewise endanger health. Women's role as nurturer presents both benefits and drawbacks. Offering and receiving social support is an important factor in health, but when people take care of others better than themselves, the role of nurturer becomes a health deficit. Demands of providing social support and nurturant care can be emotionally and physically draining, and there is no guarantee of receiving the same quality of care as that given. Women are more likely than men to be in such a situation, providing benefits to men but not as many to women.
Jobs men
men are more likely to hold dangerous jobs than women are. In addition to exposure to hazardous materials, which increases the chances of cancer, men are much more likely than women to have jobs that involve working around or operating dangerous machinery. more than 90% of workplace fatalities involvemen. Therefore, occupational hazards and violence are substantial factors contributing to the gender difference in accidental deaths
eating patterns
men eat more htan women. Eating patterns of each foncorm to the expectations of their respective gender roles. Eating less and taking smaller bites may relate to efforts to appear feminine. Eating styles can affect social perception, including impressions of femininity and personal concern about appearance. Women showed a tendency to eat less when paired with an attractive male partner but not with an unattractive male or with a female partner. Women's eating is thus motivated by the desire to appear feminine as well as the desire to give a good social impression.
situation in men
men have become subject to pressures to attain the ideal muscular body. Men tend to manage their bodies by working out and even by seeking surgery but tend to view diet as feminine, so dieting is not a preferred strategy for men in shaping their bodies. An increasing number of men diet to control their wieght including unhealthy techniques such as fasting and throwing up food.
Gender lifestyle health
men have shorter average lifespan than women in all countries. Gender gap in mortality is not static but has varied over timane d place. Women are more likely to use health care and to report symptoms of illness. Both men's shorter lives and women's poorer health may be related to their lifestyles. Men may lose years from their lifespan by behaviours assocaited with the male gender role
healthcare men
men may not receive optimum or even adequate care. During childhood, parents are somewhat more likely to take their sons to the doctor than their daughters, however once men are responsible for seeking their own medical care, they tend to avoid regular medical care. Men seek care for injuries, but not for regular exams nad screening tests. Men were 70% of those in a survey who had not been to a physician in 5 years. Men were less likely to have a regular physician than women.
women cvd
men were still twice as likely to experience CVD. Women who develop CVD have several disadvantages, some of which relate to the disease itself, and some of which relate to women's treatment in the medical system. Since 1984, women have died of cardiovascular disease at overall higher rates than men, but the stereotypes that connects men and heart disease prevents physicians from diagnosing women. Women and men with the same symptoms of heart disease do not receive the same diagnosis or recommendations for care. Physicians refer men who have symptoms of CVD for further testing, preventive interventions, and treatment more often than they refer women with similar symptoms.
Kaposi's Sarcoma
men who have many sexual partners, especially men who purchase sex, endanger their female partners by elevating the women's risk for cervical cancer by infecting them with the HIV. Power genetial hygiene in men is associated with increased risk of cervical cancer in their female sexual partners.
weight control
minor factor in considering the benefits of exercise
prostate cancer male
more common than testicular cancer. Tends to develop in older men. Not common until 75 years, increases sharply. Even without malignancy, prostate enlargement, begin during puberty can cause problems such as difficulty during urination that can require surgery. Malignant tumors of the prostate may be small and grow slowly, many elderly men die with rather from prostate cancer. Other grow more rapidly and dearly detection and treatment can extend life.
Bulimia treatment
more easily treated because bulimics typically feel guilty about their binge eating and purging and thus want to change their behaviour, but they too may exprience relapses into disordered eating.
men body image
muscularity. This iideal has become more influential, affecting body satisfaction for adolescent boys and adults. Boys and college men are more likely than girsl and women to enact their attitudes about muscularity by working out with weights and eating to increase bulk, but they too strive to avoid being what they consider fat. Desire to increase musculatirty may express by taking anabolic steroids, drugs that can help then increase muscle mass. These drugs have many negative side effects.
dieting
not only difficult, but it also is not as effective for weight control as dieting plus exercise.
underlying cause of eating disorders
not understood. Mainly because research capable of identifying causes is difficult to conduct on this topic. being dissatisfied with one's body is a necessary component but not a sufficient condition for developing an eating disorder. Individuals must also come to see eating and weight control as solutions to their personal problems, and certain resaerch indicates that some women believe in a link between weight and happiness. Combination of body dissatisfaction and the belief that eating and weight control are keys to solving one's problems lays the foundation for eating disorders.
perception of thinness
occurs early, begining during childhood and intensifies during adolescence. Watching televison featuring thin women influenced women's and men's rating of ideal body for women. Viewing muscular male models decreased men's satisfaction with their own bodies. Individuals who use dangeous methods of dieting such as fasting and purging want to be unrealistically thin and are unwilling to use healthy startegies to achieve their goals
medical research
once ommited women entirely as research participants. Rationale for omitting women was that women bias the reserach because of their low rates of certain disease, and their hormonal variations affect the action drugs. Using only male participants results in studies that are easire to complete, but these studies reveal nothing about CVD in women. Similar rationale applied to developing and testing new drugs, and a similar problem arose as a result; omitting women from drug trials fails to establish the safety and effectiveness of drugs for women.
Trichomonia
one celled parasite that can infect the vagina in women and the uretha in men. Almost always sexually transmittedl an effective drug treatment exist
seeeking medical care
partly attributed to access to medical care, with women at a disadvantage due ot their more limited financial resources nad poorer insurance coverage. Another differnece may lie in women's greater sensitivity to symptoms, but a difference also exist in the willingness to report symptoms. These differences are consistent with gender roles, with men denying and women accepting help.
men's hormone
production drops with age, they undergo no symptoms as visible as those of women during menopause. THe dcrease in hormone producion in men result in the decline of their fertility. men who lose the ability to get erections may receive hormone replacements or take drugs for erectile problems, many fewer men than women receive hormone replacement therapy.
masculinity and eating
pushing men toward unhealthy food choices. Therefore, women and men eat somewhat differently, partly due to men's greater caloric intake and partly due to the impression that women may wish to convey through their eating styles
Incidence
represents how often people dvelop these cancer, whereas mortality rates reflect how deadly each type of cancer is.
Sex
risk factor for developing CVD before age 65, with men at elevated risk. Source of this difference is unclear, but research has focused on sex steroid hormones. Despite hte belief that estrogen is protective, hormone replacement therapy carries more risks than benefits for older women. Hormone replacement is not a recommended treatment to lower the risk of CVD.
receiving health care - men
seem to have more trouble adopting the patient role than women do. Being a patient requires a person to relinquish control and follow the advice or orders of the practitioner. Gender is not a reliable predictor of patient compliance, but the combination of the demographic factors of gender, age, compliance with physicians' treatment advice. Therefore, gender is only one factor from a configuration of variables that relates to compliance with medical advice. The interaction between patient and practitioner is more important to the patient's willingness to follow health advice than a patient's personal characteristics, and gender often plays a role in that interaction.
sexual orentation
shows some relationship to disordered eating in men. Gay men expressed higher body objectification than heterosexual men, they tend to see their bodies as the only representataion of themselves. Adolescent girls who were not heterosexual were more likely to show symptoms of disorded eating and boys who were not heterosexual were less satisfied with their bodies. Men with eating disorders tend to be less obsessed with losing wieght but similarly concerned with body shape and muscle tone. Trajectories also vary, with men's symptoms decreasing throughout adulthood more than women's symptoms
alcohol r
slowing responses and altering judgement, alcohol contributes to traffic crashes. People who have been drinking are more likely to be involved in fatal traffic accidents, about half of all traffic fatalities are related to alcohol. Seat belt use is an important factor in reducing traffic fatalities and women are more liekly than men. Alcohol use increases the chances of traffic accidents, alcohol use is also related to deaths from falls, fires and drownings as wellas from boating, airplane and industrial accidents. Intoxication also increases the chances of becoming a pedestrian victim of an auto accident.
gender differences in eating
strat during early adolescence and become greater during teen years. Adolescent boys on the average eat enough food to obtain the required calories, but adolescent girls restrict their caloric intake to the point of risk for nutritional inadequacies. Adult women also eat less than adult men, but the discrepancy is not as great as during adolescence. Women may eat oto little to receive adequate nutrition
Cancer
term applied to a variety of malignant neoplasms- tissues that undergo uncontrolled growth that may form a tumour, as well as spread to other areas of the body. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the US, accounting for 23% of the deaths.
Gender and seeking health care
the decision to seek medical care is influenced by many factors, including the perception of symptoms and beliefs about the consequences of seeking or failing to seek treatment. Men are more likely to avoid regular health care; men are less likely than women to have regular physicians. When men avoid having checkups for year,s they explain these ommision in terms consistent with the masculine gender role, saying that they feel fine and thus do not need to consult physicians. Belief can be fatal: first signs of heart disease can be a fatal heart attack; many cancers do not produce symptoms in the early stages.
receiving health care
the patient role is thus more compatible with the female than the male gender role. The combination of gender roles and patient-provider roles puts women at a disadvantage in both giving and receiving medical care; as patients, women's descriptions of symptoms are ignored, and as physicians, patients have trouble recognising their expertise.
discrimination in medcine
the view that medical training presents men as the standards by which to measure all health concerns. Phsicians receive training in how to dissect and prescribe drugs for the standard patient - a 154 pound man. Directives for medical training in the US addressed this deficit, but a survey of directors of medical training indicated that students who train in internal medicine may not receive adequate training to treat women.
gender role and heatlh care
traditional male and female gender roles differ in the amount of vulnerability each is allowed and the permissibility of seeking help. One facet of the masculine role, the Sturdy Oak, holds that men are strong and invulnerable; this aspect of the role causes men to refrain from showing signs of physical illness or seeking medical care. Traditional female role allows and even encourages weakness and vulnerability for emotional and physical problems. Adherence to traditional gender roles may hinder men from seeking help for their symptoms, but elements of the traditional feminine gender role relate to greater distress for women as well as to their increased readiness to seek medical care.
Men's sexual behaviour cancer
twice as many men as women engage in risky sexual behaviours. Their behaviour can also place them at risk for cancer; twice as many men as women engage in risky seuxla behaviours. Their behaviour can also be a risk for their female sex partners. men who are the receptive partner in unprotected and anal intercourse are at increased risk for anal cancer as well as for infection with the HIV. One of the disease associated with HIV/AIDS is a form of cancer called Kaposi's sarcoma
Violent Deaths
unintentional injuries are the 5th, suicide are the 11th and homicide 15. Men are about 3 times more likely than women to die from violent deaths. Discrepancy holds for all ages, from birth until old age, but the differences are most pronounced early in life.
physicians stereotypes
views of owmen and their views have impact on their treatment of female patients. Promoted the view that women are emotional and incapable of providing accurate information about their bodies. Provides backdrop against which physicians communicate with, diagnose and treat patients. An increasing percentage of physicians are women and research with female physicians revealed that female physicians spend more time with their patients, recommended more preventive services and paid more attention to emotional issues.
Genital herpes, viral hepatitis, genital warts
viral STDs. The human papillomavirus that causes genital warts is also the cause of cervical cancer, and a vacinne has been developed to prevent the transmission of this virus to those who are not infected. Recommendations include vaccinating girls who have not yet become sexually active to prevent infection with this virus, decreasing the incidence of cervical cancer. For those who are infected and develop genital warts, treatments include surgical removal. Difficult to manage and presently without a cure. Infection with any STD makes a person more vulnerable to HIV infection because genital leisons allow HIV a easy route for infection
HIV
virus that produces acquired immune deficiency syndrome, virus that can be sexually transmitted. Damages the immune system, leaving the body open to a variety of opportunistic disease that eventually lead to death.
Husbands
wives provide the most important source of social support, urging husbands to seek medical care and maintain healthy habits such as eating a healthy diet, exercising and not smoking. Men do not do as well as providing emotional support for their wives, nor do husbands urge wives to seek health care.
reluctance to seek medical care
women are more likely than men to be outside the paid workforce and to be employed on a part time basis, whereas men are more likely to have the type ofjobs that offer health insurance benefits. Women who are not employed can receive these benefits if they are married to men who have good insurance plans. Continued health insurance depends on the continued employment of the souse and the continuation of the marriage.
reproductive organs
women are more likely than men to seek health care concerning problems with their reproductive organs. Greater risk for cancer of organs in the reproductive system than men are throughout young and middle adulthood, men are more likely to develop testicular cancer between 15 and 34 years. This form of cancer is quite rare, but rates are increasing; men are most likely to develop this form of caner during the yars when they tend to avoid regular physical checkups. This form of cancer is rarely fatal if treated early, but fatality rates rise sharply with delays in treatment, going form a 90% survival rate to only a 25% survival rate. This rare form of cancer taht affects men in their 20 to 30s may be fatal more often than it would be if men gave more attention to their health.
Suicide
women are more likely to attempt suicide, but men are more likely to actually commit suicide. Difference in sucide rates for men and women began to decrease during the 70s. Ratio of attempted suicide is about 10 to 1. The main reason for men's higher rates of completed suicides is the tendency to choose more lethal methods, such as guns and jumping from high places, whereas women more often attempt suicide by taking drugs. The lethality of the methods chosen produces higher suicide rates among men, despite women's more frequent attempts.
Women seeking health care
women find it more difficult to avoid the health care system. Young women must seek medical advice to obtain many forms of contraceptions. Young women counts in the statistics as having consulted physicians, although their medical visits involve no illness. Such medical consultations often include physicla examinations that may reveal health problems that require addictional treatment. Young men receive no comparable medical attention during young adulthood thatt might reveal physical problems; these differences in treatment for healthy young men and women contribute to the statistics concerning gender differences in receiving health care.
Women
women have higher morbidity (higher rates of illness) but also lower death rates (lower mortality). Longer life expectancy for women is not a recent development, nor is it restricted to any ethnic group. Female gender role permits sickness to be acknowledged more readily than does men's gender role, thus providing one possibility for women's higher morbidity rates. WOmen also tend to monitor their own health more vigilantly than men do and to seek health care when they perceive a problem. Women seek and receive more health care than men, which may relate ot their lower mortality rates - women are better at prevention. ALso women practice better health behaviours, which lower the risks for the leading causes of death in the US.
health caresystem
women live longer than men, but are sick more oftne. Defining what constitutes being sick is not simple, but doctor visit, hospital admission, restrictive of activities or reports of distress are some indicators; women meet any of these definitions of illness more often than men do.
menopause
women lose their fertility; cease ovulation and menstruation, and their production of estrogen and progesterone declines. Some women experience uncomfortable symptoms associated with menopause; the most common is the hot flash, a sudden feeling of heat and skin flushing. Only 10% of women experience serious symptoms associated with menopause.
medical profession treatment for females
women were healers throughout history but have been replaced by technological, male-dominated forms of healing, with dominant male physicians but subordinate female nurses. Negative stereotypes of female patients have led to pooorer levels of medical care for women than for men. Failures to include the most current research on gender differences in disease and responses to treatment, an overemphasis on individual responsibility and underemphasis on social circumstances that influence health related behaviours and treatment seeking
eating
women's relationship with food is especially complex; women use food as comfort, but they also show more concern with eating to control weight and are more likely to diet than men. This concern with weight and their attempts to restrict food intake lead women to hold different atitudes toward eating than men do. Men and women's brains do not respond to hunger and satiation in the same way.
Candidiasis albicans
yeast like fungus, produces itching and swelling of the genitals. Transmitted through sexual intercourse, but this infection is not always an STD; more common in women who take contraceptive pills or are pregnant or diabetic. Conditions alter chemistry of the vagina, allowing this fungus to grow at a rapid rate, producing annoying and painful symptoms. Chemical treatments exist to contorl this type of infection
