PSYC3015 Health Psychology III

Question: Meet Fatima. Fatima is a 30-year-old single mother of 2 young children. She works 50-hour weeks to support and care for her family and has little time to relax on her own. Fatima does not smoke, in truth, she cannot afford to. All of her money goes to her children. Fatima eats along with her kids every day, but often cannot afford fresh fruits and vegetables for their dinner, often the family eats processed foods (boxed macaroni and cheese, frozen pizza, etc.). Fatima has long suffered from fatigue and the occasional chest pain but cannot afford to go to the doctor. One day, she fainted and was diagnosed with hypertension at the hospital. Using this example, examine the psychological constructs at the various stages of health. Be sure to refer to your reading material, and note the accompanying theoretical frameworks to support your analysis, as needed Answer: The case presented here is that of Fatima, a 30 year old who lives with her children. Their life is that of struggles and they cannot afford a good meal, she does not smoke either but one day she collapses and is diagnosed with hypertension. This write-up aims at critically analyzing the situation and examines the psychological constructs at the various stages of health but in relation to Fatima’s situation. Healthy psychology is basically the study of all possible physical illness and it in particular addresses problems such as that of obesity. Well, for our case, we can simply conclude that Fatima suffers some aspect of obesity (Laher & Ismail, 2012).This is evident since we are told that she works 50hours a week and cannot afford fresh fruits and vegetables for their meals and as a result they mostly eat processed foods. As we all know, no one is actually responsible for their illness. This is because of the fact that illness often arises from various biological changes that are beyond the control of an individual, an individual is thus regarded more as a victim (Ogden, 2012). Health psychology suggests that some certain factors are actually responsible for illnesses in the human body. It’s not just a single factor but rather a combination of several factors. Like for this case of Fatima, hypertension maybe as a result of quite a number of factors. Her age here comes into play, she 30 years old with two young children and to make matters works she works 50 hours a week. Her diet is might also be another possible cause. We are told that Fatima cannot afford fresh fruits and vegetables for dinner and most of the times they buy processed foods. Psychology health aims at monitoring and looking keenly at quite a number of things. For instance, it tries to assess the role of behavior in the development of various illnesses, it also predicts unhealthy behaviors and most importantly it tries to understand the experiences of various illnesses (Costello, 2013). Behavior for instance plays a very crucial in the longevity. It can be categorically considered as a determinant of the time that a person could possibly live. Statistics have it that diet contributes about 35% the amount/period of time a person can live (McGuffin & Murray, 2013).A proper diet is therefore necessary for any person whatsoever. Fatima’s case was quite distinct as we can see that young family could not afford to have a decent diet. This is a reason and can be pegged to the hypertension that she was diagnosed with when she collapsed. It is also important to practice good health behaviors. This can be looked at in terms of not only diet but also smoking, alcohol drinking, exercises and also sleep. The term health behaviors here have been used to refer to all the possible behaviors that are related to the health status of an individual which can be both directly or indirectly. Fatima’s case was quite significant. It portrays a family that did not observe at a greater extent and degree the issue of good heath behavior. Fatima herself worked for about 50 hours a week and we are not told that she had some good/ample time to rest. One of the main causes of hypertension is stress. Lifestyle factors also are one way to explain and address hypertension (Gould, Brown, Bramwell, 2010). Finally and most importantly when looking at psychological constructs at the various stages of health it is important to note quite a number of aspects that actually form a major section of the whole concept of psychological health. One of the most important aspects is the biopsychosocial model. The Biopsychosocial Model-This is a model that was specially designed to try and bring a match between psychological and the environment and the traditional biomedical concepts. Here the bio contributing factors consisted of viruses and genetics among others, physco aspects of the other hand were categorically those that related to cognition or emotions. Social aspects of health consists those that related to social norms and behaviors such as smoking among others. The biopsychosocial model is kind of related to the issue of psychology health in that it incorporates with it the concept of social behavior just like psychology health does. These two are quite distinct however in the sense that the later is less complex and focused more on behavioral health (Schaie & Willis, 2010). Generally, it can be concluded that psychology health is quite complex and it examines the effects of various aspects on the health of individuals as the case of Fatima who was diagnosed with hypertension. References Costello, M. S. (2013). Imagination, illness and injury: Jungian psychology and the somatic dimensions of perception. Routledge. Gould, R. V., Brown, S. L., & Bramwell, R. (2010). Psychological adjustment to gynaecological cancer: Patients’ illness representations, coping strategies and mood disturbance. Psychology and Health, 25(5), 633-646. Laher, S., & Ismail, A. (2012). South African Muslim Psychologists’ Perceptions of Mental Illness. Journal of Psychology in Africa, 22(4), 667-669. McGuffin, P., & Murray, R. (Eds.). (2013). The new genetics of mental illness. Butterworth-Heinemann. Ogden, J. (2012). Health Psychology: A Textbook: A textbook. McGraw-Hill Education (UK). Schaie, K. W., & Willis, S. L. (Eds.). (2010). Handbook of the psychology of aging. Academic Press.

PSYC3015 Health Psychology III

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