This study aims to determine the prevalence of selected health behaviors (smoking, diet, exercise and early cancer detection) and outcomes (obesity, cardiovascular fitness, type…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to determine the prevalence of selected health behaviors (smoking, diet, exercise and early cancer detection) and outcomes (obesity, cardiovascular fitness, type II diabetes mellitus and cancer) among Arab immigrants living in Colorado and evaluate the relationships between acculturation and health behaviors from a socio-ecological perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is a cross-sectional survey of 100 adult Arab immigrants living in Colorado.
Findings
The study showed that Arab immigrants in Colorado engage in healthy behaviors such as eating a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables (34 per cent), exercising (44 per cent) and seeking early cancer screening (35 per cent among women and 42 per cent among men). In comparison to the general population in Colorado, the study results showed that Arab immigrants were more likely to engage in moderate or vigorous exercise (p < 0.001, OR = 1.84) and consume the recommended daily amounts of fruits and vegetables (p = 0.05, OR = 1.56). The study revealed that culture plays an important role in shaping and affecting Arab immigrant health behaviors. Those who were more acculturated were more likely to be physically active and eat healthy.
Research/limitations/implications
The prevalence of overweight in the current sample was similar to the rate of overweight in other studies of Arab immigrants. This study’s findings about overweight signal a need for culturally sensitive health promotion interventions for Arab immigrants. The study limitations included the use of self-reported measures in the survey, the use of cross-sectional design and the use of a probability sample.
Originality/value
Understanding culturally relevant predictors of certain health behaviors, such as exercise and diet, can help health providers design health promotion interventions that focus on the individual and the environment to meet the health needs of Arab immigrants.
Details
Keywords
If additional evidence were needed of the connection between food supply and the spread of infectious disease, it would be found in a report recently presented to the Finsbury…
Abstract
If additional evidence were needed of the connection between food supply and the spread of infectious disease, it would be found in a report recently presented to the Finsbury Borough Council by its Medical Officer of Health, Dr. GEORGE NEWMAN. It appears that in the early part of May a number of cases of scarlet fever were notified to Dr. NEWMAN, and upon inquiry being made it was ascertained that nearly the whole of these cases had partaken of milk from a particular dairy. A most pains‐taking investigation was at once instituted, and the source of the supply was traced to a farm in the Midlands, where two or three persons were found recovering from scarlet fever. The wholesale man in London, to whom the milk was consigned, at first denied that any of this particular supply had been sent to shops in the Finsbury district, but it was eventually discovered that one, or possibly two, churns had been delivered one morning, with the result that a number of persons contracted the disease. One of the most interesting points in Dr. NEWMAN'S report is that three of these cases, occurring in one family, received milk from a person who was not a customer of the wholesale dealer mentioned above. It transpired on the examination of this last retailer's servants that on the particular morning on which the infected churn of milk had been sent into Finsbury, one of them, running short, had borrowed a quart from another milkman, and had immediately delivered it at the house in which these three cases subsequently developed. The quantity he happened to borrow was a portion of the contents of the infected churn.
Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are…
Abstract
Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.
As yet there are no indications that the President of the Local Government Board intends to give the force of law to the recommendations submitted to him by the Departmental…
Abstract
As yet there are no indications that the President of the Local Government Board intends to give the force of law to the recommendations submitted to him by the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board to inquire into the use of preservatives and colouring matters in food. It is earnestly to be hoped that at least some of the recommendations of the Committee will become law. It is in the highest degree objectionable that when a Committee of the kind has been appointed, and has carried out a long and difficult investigation, the recommendations which it finally makes should be treated with indifference and should not be acted upon. If effect should not be given to the views arrived at after the careful consideration given to the whole subject by the Committee, a very heavy responsibility would rest upon the Authorities, and it cannot but be admitted that the Committee ought never to have been appointed if it was not originally intended that its recommendations should be made legally effective. Every sensible person who takes the trouble to study the evidence and the report must come to the conclusion that the enforcement of the recommendations is urgently required upon health considerations alone, and must see that a long‐suffering public is entitled to receive rather more protection than the existing legal enactments can afford. To refrain from legalising the principal recommendations in the face of such evidence and of such a report would almost amount to criminal negligence and folly. We are well aware that the subject is not one that is easily “understanded of the people,” and that the complicated ignorance of various noisy persons who imagine that they have a right to hold opinions upon it is one of the stumbling blocks in the way of reform; but we believe that this ignorance is confined, in the main, to irresponsible individuals, and that the Government Authorities concerned are not going to provide the public with a painful exhibition of incapacity and inaction in connection with the matter. There is some satisfaction in knowing that although the recommendations have not yet passed into law, they can be used with powerful effect in any prosecutions for the offence of food‐drugging which the more enlightened Local Authorities may be willing to institute, since it can no longer be alleged that the question of preservatives is still “under the consideration” of the Departmental Committee, and since it cannot be contended that the recommendations made leave any room for doubt as to the Committee's conclusions.
For most people, especially those with fixed incomes, household budgets have to be balanced and sometimes the balance is precarious. With price rises of foods, there is a switch…
Abstract
For most people, especially those with fixed incomes, household budgets have to be balanced and sometimes the balance is precarious. With price rises of foods, there is a switch to a cheaper substitute within the group, or if it is a food for which there is no real substitute, reduced purchases follow. The annual and quarterly reviews of the National Food Survey over the years have shown this to be so; with carcase meat, where one meat is highly priced, housewives switch to a cheaper joint, and this is mainly the reason for the great increase in consumption of poultry; when recently the price of butter rose sharply, there was a switch to margarine. NFS statistics did not show any lessening of consumer preference for butter, but in most households, with budgets on a tight string, margarine had to be used for many purposes for which butter had previously been used. With those foods which have no substitute, and bread (also milk) is a classic example, to keep the sum spent on the food each week about the same, the amount purchased is correspondingly reduced. Again, NFS statistics show this to be the case, a practice which has been responsible for the small annual reductions in the amount of bread consumed per person per week over the last fifteen years or so; very small, a matter of an ounce or two, but adequate to maintain the balance of price/quantity since price rises have been relatively small, if fairly frequent. This artifice to absorb small price rises will not work, however, when price rises follow on one another rapidly and together are large. Bread is a case in point.
The formulated proposals for this legal principle in the trade battern of the European Community have again appeared in the EEC draft Directive. It has been many years in coming…
Abstract
The formulated proposals for this legal principle in the trade battern of the European Community have again appeared in the EEC draft Directive. It has been many years in coming, indicating the extreme difficulties encountered in bringing some sort of harmony in the different laws of Member‐states including those of the United Kingdom, relating to the subject. Over the years there were periods of what appeared to be complete inactivity, when no progress was being made, when consultations were at a stand‐still, but the situation was closely monitored by manufacturers of goods, including food and drink, in the UK and the BFJ published fairly detailed reviews of proposals being considered — in 1979 and 1981; and even as recently as the last few months — in “Consumerism in the Community”, the subject was briefly discussed.
Those who move among the people with their eyes open will not doubt that the number of non‐smokers is increasing, but mostly among older adults. Sales of cigarettes, despite the…
Abstract
Those who move among the people with their eyes open will not doubt that the number of non‐smokers is increasing, but mostly among older adults. Sales of cigarettes, despite the ban on advertising and the grim warning printed on packets, do not reflect this however, which can only mean that those who still smoke are the heavy smokers. This is a bad sign; as is the fact that youngsters, including a high percentage of those at school, openly flaunt the habit. The offence of using tobacco or any other smoking mixture or snuff while handling food or in any food room in which there is open food (Reg. 10(e)), remains one of the common causes of prosecutions under the Food Hygiene Regulations; it has not diminished over the years. The commonest offenders are men and especially those in the butchery trade, fishmongers and stall‐holders, but, here again, to those who move around, the habit seems fairely widespread. Parts of cigarettes continue to be a common finding especially in bread and flour confectionery, but also in fresh meat, indicating that an offence has been committed, and only a few of the offenders end up in court. Our purpose in returning to the subject of smoking, however, is not to relate it to food hygiene but to discuss measures of control being suggested by the Government now that advertising bans and printed health warnings have patently failed to achieve their object.
Some months ago a national organisation established to keep a watchful eye on the Nation's diet expressed concern over the eating trends of people in what to them appeared to be…
Abstract
Some months ago a national organisation established to keep a watchful eye on the Nation's diet expressed concern over the eating trends of people in what to them appeared to be developing inbalances of necessary nutrient factors and the inadeuacy not so much of calories and energy values but in the nature and quality of main food factors. It was recommended that the national diet should be improved, but the authorities pointed to the National Food Survey results to show that the diet was not deficient; that the average daily intake of protein, vitamins, minerals and overall energy requirements were satisfied; all of which is true for the not‐too‐generous levels set. Even the pensioner households included in the Survey sample appear well‐fed. What causes concern is the year‐by‐year decrease in staple foods consumed—milk, red meat, bread, fresh vegetables—and the heavy reliance on refined, processed foods. In its annual reports on NFS reviews, the BFJ has almost monotonously referred to this downward trend. Individual NFS Reports do not reveal any serious deficiencies, as yet, but in the trend over the years—and herein lies the real value of the Survey and its data—few if any of the changes have been for the better; movements in food groups have tended to be downwards. If these trends continue, the time must surely come when there will be real deficiencies; that substitution within a food group cannot make good essential foods severely rationed by high prices.
At a recent inquest upon the body of a woman who was alleged to have died as the result of taking certain drugs for an improper purpose, one of the witnesses described himself as…
Abstract
At a recent inquest upon the body of a woman who was alleged to have died as the result of taking certain drugs for an improper purpose, one of the witnesses described himself as “an analyst and manufacturing chemist,” but when asked by the coroner what qualifications he had, he replied : “I have no qualifications whatever. What I know I learned from my father, who was a well‐known ‘F.C.S.’” Comment on the “F.C.S.” is needless.