Being Poor And Coping With Stress: Analysis

Register to read the introduction… I know many people who come from a lower-middle class background just like myself, have access to clean water, gym facilities, and clean air, yet they drink pop, do not work out, and sit inside and watch T.V. for hours. In my opinion, I think many people in our society take their health for granted, including myself. As the saying goes, “you don't know what you have until it's gone.” People not only take their health for granted, but they take life for granted as well. No one thinks they are going to die early on in life and no one thinks they will develop cancer, diabetes, heart disease, or any other chronic disease. My point being is that many people do not really start to take care of themselves until something bad happens to them. Instead of waiting around for their health to crumble, our society needs to take more action when it comes to bettering their …show more content…
Krueger and Virginia W. Chang, they discussed the interaction between stress and health behaviors on mortality and found that a person’s health depended upon their socioeconomic status; high socioeconomic status, middle socioeconomic status, or low socioeconomic status. They found that “low-SES individuals are especially disadvantaged” because they lack resources to help maintain their health and cope with stress effectively (article). They also found that “engaging in unhealthy, but pleasurable behaviors is a poor strategy for coping with high perceived stress because these behaviors may increase the impact of stress on mortality.” For example, people who are trying to cope with stress may drink pop or other high sugar caffeine drinks simply because they taste good and for the caffeine buzz. However, these pleasurable behaviors come with a huge side …show more content…
However, in regards to access to clean water, people with a low SES may have more of an opportunity to clean water than they think. There is a much higher prevalence of fast food restaurants in low-income areas which allows people to have convenient access to fast food. Many low socioeconomic status families may tend to go to fast food venues more often than not because of the convenient access, but also because the food is cheap. Nonetheless, every fast food venue allows free cups of water which means that even people living in a low socioeconomic area still have access to clean water. However, there access to clean water is still limited since they have to actually go to a fast food restaurant to get water instead of just being able to drink from it at