...Lifestyles and African-Americans – What are the Correlations? Publication / Internet Site: http://www.imdiversity.com/villages/african/family_lifestyle_traditions/bpr_obesity1127.asp Date: N/A Issue: IMDiversity Body: Makeisha Lee, Black health consultant in this article speaks to us as African-Americans about having the right balance of foods in our lives. The article goes on to explain that eating is one life’s greatest pleasures. We human beings enjoy the smell of good food, the taste of good food, the texture, as well as how it makes us feel when it goes down, so food can be very pleasurable but it can also be very dangerous if not kept in its proper balance. As Ms. Lee said earlier we can enjoy food but the primary job for food is to nourish our bodies. The nutrients that we get from the foods help our bodies to sustain life, health as well as strength. When we don’t have the right balance of foods that are bodies, ( mind-body and emotion) gets all a lot of whack. If you don’t have the right balance of food and have adequate exercise you end up with, “Obesity”. A definition for obesity is the intake of food overpowering the needed exercise in order to keep the weight down. Obesity is more common in African Americans than any other ethnic group. Let’s take a closer look to see why this is. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) of vital health statistics, 16.1% of African-American males are overweight and 78% of black women leave the population...
Words: 1240 - Pages: 5
...A Gender Comparison of Resiliency among Older African American Katrina Survivors Name Institution Date A Gender Comparison of Resiliency among Older African American Katrina Survivors The hurricane Katrina is rated the fifth most deadly hurricane in the history of the United States. The period of the hurricane witnessed massive destruction of property besides lost of lives. In addition to thee various forms of loss that became manifested in the period of the menace, a number of cases of psychological torture were reported due to the fear of the unknown. The coast regions reported high number of these cases with the coast line extending from central Florida to Texas experiencing the highest cases of destruction and situations of general turmoil. In connection to the harsh situations experience in this period, the reaction strategy among persons affected was different (Lawson, 2010). The manner in which persons reacted to this calamity depended on a number of factors among the ethical group, gender, geographical region besides other aspects that became highly central in the nature of the reactions. In most instances, copying strategies were adopted in order to help persons effectively adapt to the situations that also involved designing possible measures for curbing the adverse effects of the hurricane. Among the group of persons that were highly affected by the calamity was the African American community. A key attribute to this was the large number of the ethnic...
Words: 1466 - Pages: 6
...Diabetes Mellitus among African Americans Final Research Paper Peggy Hollie Epidemiology Disease Dr. Peters May 9, 2012 Diabetes Mellitus is characterized by abnormal metabolism of carbohydrate, protein, and fat, resulting in increased levels of blood sugar. The adjective mellitus (for sweet) is used with diabetes insipidus (tasteless), which is so rare that the word diabetes by itself generally refers to diabetes mellitus. The only thing that diabetes mellitus and diabetes insipidus have in common is polyuria, or frequent urination. There are two forms of diabetes mellitus: Type I, or insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus IDDM), and Type II, or non-insulin-dependent diabetes (NIDDM). Diabetes is one of the ten leading causes of death from disease in the United States. It is the result of an insufficient supply of insulin or an inadequate use of insulin that is supplied from the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC (2010), diabetes affects 25.8 million people 8.3% of the U.S. population, diagnosed 18.8 million people and undiagnosed 7.0 million people. African Americans who have diabetes are 4.9 million or 18.7% aged 20 years or older. African Americans are twice as likely to be diagnosed with diabetes as non-Hispanic whites. In addition, they are more likely to suffer complications from diabetes, such as end-stage renal disease and lower extremity...
Words: 2518 - Pages: 11
...Venegas and Alvarado (2010) think it could be due to the social expressions expected of men versus women. Men are expected to be more stoic and not express their feelings in social situations. Bassett (2017) believes women more frequently serve as caregivers for the sick and dying, whether it be as a nurse or for an aging parent. This could mean that women could be more prepared to think about how sickness and death will affect them and other loved ones personally, where men may think about death only at the abstract level, as all living things must...
Words: 1650 - Pages: 7
...After all, she thought of herself as perfectly healthy. But it turns out Shermane had been at risk all along. Like many other African American women, she had a strong family history of high blood pressure and heart disease. Unfortunately, she didn’t discover this until it was almost too late. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer in women, and stroke disproportionately affects African Americans. Importantly, African American women are less likely than Caucasian women to be aware that heart disease is the leading cause of death. Diabetes, smoking, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, physical inactivity, obesity and a family history of heart disease are all greatly prevalent among African Americans and are major risk factors for heart disease and stroke. What’s more, African American women have almost two times the risk of stroke than Caucasians, and more likely to die at an earlier age when compared to women of other ethnicities. Here are a few unsettling stats: Cardiovascular diseases kill nearly 50,000 African American women annually. Of African-American women ages 20 and older, 49 percent have heart diseases. Only 1 in 5 African American women believes she is personally at risk. Only 52 percent of African American women are aware of the signs and symptoms of a heart attack. Only 36 percent of African American women know that heart disease is their greatest health risk....
Words: 293 - Pages: 2
...Perceived Seriousness and Susceptibility, and Risk Behaviors of Older African Americans” Journal of Multicultural Nursing and Health Johnson 3 Age presents a unique challenge for health care providers in that some relatively newer diseases may not be perceived the same in the elderly as it is in the younger population in general. The study produced by Frances Jackson et al. sheds an illuminating light on the perceptions of elderly African Americans as it relates to HIV/Aids. The District of Columbia has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the country and as nurses, we must continue to try to educate our citizens some of the lingering misconceptions about the disease. Indeed, knowledge in this instance, can be life saving. The study by Jackson et al. illustrates the enormity of the task at hand. The survey group included 155 useful responses to the 500 questionnaires mailed. The questionnaire was based on four themes: knowledge, seriousness, susceptibility and risk behaviors. According to Jackson, “older African Americans generally have a high level of knowledge about HIV but still believe that HIV can be acquired through casual contact and have other misinformation regarding transmission. Older African Americans believe that HIV/Aids is a serious disease but do not feel personally susceptible to acquiring it. There is widespread reluctance among African American men and women to using condoms. Despite risk behaviors, rates of HIV testing are...
Words: 691 - Pages: 3
...Running head: AIDS/HIV IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY MBA 530 Community Health Evaluation/Epidemiology Dr. Patricia Pierce Latoya Blain 06/17/2012 AIDS/HIV in the African American Community Of all the ethnic and racial groups of the United States of America, the African Americans are the ones who have been to a larger extent faced with the HIV/AIDS burden. Statistics show that more than two hundred and thirty thousand African Americans have already passed on as a result of AIDS- a figure which represents 40% of the total deaths in the U.S. Besides, it is estimated that those living with HIV in the U.S. are more than one million, half of whom are blacks (NASTAD, 2005). The probability of having been infected with HIV/AIDS among the African Americans is one on every 16 (for the black males) and 1 in every 30 people (for the black women). Washington D.C. has the highest prevalence of HIV infection, at three percent; with 75% of the infected people being African Americans. The National HIV/AIDS Strategy has reported that African Americans form the greatest proportion of the many cases of HIV/AIDS in the various transmission sorts, including among women, injection drug users, infants and heterosexual men (The White House, 2010). From the above statistics, one may, therefore, wonder African Americans as affected by AIDS in such a disproportionate manner. Historically, it was back in the early 1980s...
Words: 2241 - Pages: 9
...CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE IN AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN Richard Allen Williams, M.D. Clinical Professor of Medicine, UCLA School of Medicine President/CEO, Minority Health Institute, Los Angeles, California Introduction Cardiovascular disease (CVD) has long been considered a disorder which principally affects men in our society; consideration of the occurrence of heart attacks in females, for example, has been largely an afterthought. In the past few years, however, it has become increasingly obvious that this is not a problem limited to males, but that it occurs with great frequency in women. We now know that CVD is the cause of death more than any condition in women over the age of 50, including cancer (1) and in fact is responsible for more than a third of all deaths in women (2). It is estimated that 370,000 women in the United States die from heart disease each year. However, our knowledge base regarding CVD in African American (AA) women has not kept pace with the accumulation of data on white females. Thus, there is a deficit of information about this subgroup and the prevalence of CVD despite the fact that black women have more risk factors for CVD than do white women (3). The purpose of this paper is to review the subject of CVD in African American women and to focus upon four principal CVD categories: Coronary artery disease (CAD), hypertension, stroke, and congestive heart failure (CHF).The impact of gender and race on each of these...
Words: 2577 - Pages: 11
...minorities, uninsured children, women, those living in rural areas, the homeless, the mentally ill, the chronically ill and disabled and those with HIV” Shi and Singh, 2015). “In 2010 a questionnaire was made with 15 racial categories that included white, Black, American Indian or...
Words: 1745 - Pages: 7
...HIV in the African American Population HIV in the African American Population The year was 1981, and the first discovered cases of PCP, Pneumocystis Cabrini pneumonia was discovered in five young males who did not fit the norm for being diagnosed with this disease. In 1983, the isolation of a T lymph tropic retrovirus was found. In January 1983, the CDC reported a new disease which could be sexually transmitted both homosexually and heterosexual, passed from mother to infant, through blood and blood products. A note was made that the disease could also be passed from a negative host, who carried the disease asymptomatically. On February 7th, the world takes notice of the African American blacks and their relationship with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In 2006, blacks composed approximately 12% of the United States population over the age of 13. Out of that reported number it was estimated that 46% of them are living with HIV/AIDS. 63% of those cases were from between male to male cases, with 83% new cases being from high risk heterosexual black females. The numbers from the CDC report it is an estimated 12.3 per 10,000 blacks that are currently affected yearly. Of all the ethnic and racial groups of the United States of America, the African Americans are the ones who have been to a larger extent faced with the HIV/AIDS burden. Statistics show that more than two hundred and thirty thousand African Americans have already passed on as a result of AIDS- a figure which represents...
Words: 2772 - Pages: 12
...year late. I could not afford an ACT or SAT tutor, so I opted for community college. I could not afford community college, so I worked for a year and a half to save for college before going. I could not afford to stay in college after one and a half years in, so I took a year off to save more money. I did not save enough, so I started relying on scholarships to help finance my college career. As such, I am older than most students within my class and this sometimes results in a generation gap in experiences and viewpoints. Sometimes, I am completely floored by their thoughts and beliefs. And this forces me to realize that the...
Words: 624 - Pages: 3
...for a privileged segment of the American population”. Also the LA times released a cartoon in 1928 displaying that the Wall Street boom is racing ahead the “bandwagon” which displays American prosperity. The Economic boom created jobs, increased wages and caused the innovation of lots of new products. The impact of world war one boosted the economy because America lent money to western European countries and sold munitions to them, they sold...
Words: 2017 - Pages: 9
...Examination Survey (NHANES) for 1999–2002 showed that the hypertension prevalence rate was highest among African American, almost 50% higher than white people. African Americans develop hypertension at an early age, reach advanced levels of hypertension, are prone to experience further complications, and are less likely to attain control of their hypertension. Hypertension is a leading cause of preventable death in the United States and among African Americans. African Americans have the highest risk for hypertension-related deaths. Among all racial/ethnic groups, African American women have the highest prevalence (45%) and lowest control of high blood pressure (59%). NHANES data examining the 2001–2010 time period also showed African Americans were more likely to have uncontrolled hypertension than white people and Hispanic people. Poor adherence to medication has been identified as a major contributor to uncontrolled hypertension among African American patients. Women are about as likely as men to develop high blood pressure during their lifetimes. However, for people younger than 45 years old, the condition affects more men than women. For people 65 years and older, high blood pressure affects more women than men. Blacks develop high blood pressure more often, and at an earlier age, than whites and Hispanics do. More black women than men have high blood pressure. More than 348,000 American deaths in 2009 included high blood pressure as a primary or contributing cause. That’s 1,000 deaths...
Words: 354 - Pages: 2
...While other groups came to seek their fortune in the “land of opportunity”, one group came to the America under duress. Each group found prejudice and discrimination. As the years passed and the country continued to grow, the barriers of prejudice and discrimination were beginning to crumble. The different groups began to accept the differences that accompanied the diversity of the nation. These changes bring up a question. Has the United States finally overcome our fear of diversity? If we examine the cultural background of Americans, we will discover many are of European descent. Many of our ancestors came looking for religious freedom. Others came to settle debts they had in their homeland. Some citizens are descendants of slaves who were sold to affluent citizens and plantation owners. The circumstances around people in these groups arrival resulted in prejudice and ethnocentrism. Prejudice was not just directed toward African Americans during the 19th century. German, Irish, Polish, Chinese and Italian immigrants found themselves the victims of prejudice and discrimination (Schaeffer, 2013). They came to the United States to find a better life. Many worked for wages which were less than Caucasian workers. Employers during this time would hire more immigrants because of this fact. Prejudice grew stronger toward these groups because they were taking the jobs away from white workers. This trend is still evident in...
Words: 1181 - Pages: 5
...Gang violence was ruled as what is known as the Bronx, New York. Many youth felt this was the only way of life and the only choice they were given to survive. The youth then turned to the gangs and referred to their actions as a way of life. Which in turn lead to many young lives lost between the African American culture and the Latino culture. With fire in their lungs and pain in their hearts Hip Hop and Rap was born. Many called it their way out of the burning hell on earth. More than 60 years ago African Americans and Latinos turned spoken word and poetry in what is now called Rap. They used is as a way to express themselves when no one wanted to hear what they had to say on a daily basis. In the 60s Rap and Hip Hop was a way many African American men expressed their thoughts without ending up behind bars or beaten to death. Once Rap became mainstream many listeners let go of the beat and listened to the message behind the beat, they started to focus on the lyrics. While being freed from slavery, African American were still slaves to the abuse and being mistreated in American and many didn’t have a fire behind the anger to make a stand. Rap lyrics that held a strong uplifting message gave many people those flames to stand and fight for their rights. In an article I recently read that Rap is linguistics major’s dream while also being their worst nightmare. I didn’t read on to see why the writer stated that because I held my own beliefs as to why this may be true. While...
Words: 2485 - Pages: 10
