SES Gradiant

Fine Dining Food

This blog will introduce the idea of the SES gradient and how that correlates with diet decisions. To begin, the SES gradient stands for socioeconomic status which can include and measure income, assets, occupational status, education, housing conditions, and other aspects that can be measured in life. A gradient is a scale where those with high socioeconomic statuses are at the top and with every step down comes poorer health. There are lots of studies that focus on this topic and support my previous claim about the SES gradient and how it correlates with health. There are many different variables that could affect a person's health, but I will touch upon:

• Stress 
• There are many psychological stresses that could be a key factor to poor health and bad dietary choices. Things like crowding, crime, noise pollution, discrimination, and other hazards or stressors can have a huge affect on someone mentally and physically. 
• Mentally, I feel like there are a lot of people that would be too drained by the end of the day to go buy and cook a nutritious meal for themselves and their families. Turning to quick, cheap meals is solution that is very easy and appealing to go with. 
• Physically, stress can do lots of damage to your body. Human beings chemically produce a hormone called Cortisol which comes from the adrenal glands. The following link will explain more about the functions of Cortisol and how it can have negative effects to your body. http://stress.about.com/od/stresshealth/a/cortisol.htm. To summarize, stress can have negative effects because it produces high levels of Cortisol which can effect mental functions, aging, cellular functions in tissue, high blood pressure, and many other health issues. 
• Social capital
• This is a sociological concept that refers to the collections a person has within or between social networks. It also refers to the resources that is available within your social networks combined with those people's willingness to help.
• Neighborhoods
• Can play a huge role in mental and physical health. Living in lower class neighborhoods have more disadvantages than meets the eye. The dangers of actually going outside can put stress on parents and children, which in turn will trap them indoors so they can not receive the physical activity that is needed. Also most of these neighborhoods do not have grocery stores with fresh fruits and vegetables for people to purchase. Schools in these neighborhoods do not educate the kids well enough for them to go out and make the decisions that will keep them healthy.
• Cultures
• Lots of other non-American cultures tend to have more family orientated meals which surprisingly is a pretty big variable to a healthy life-style. The movie "Becoming American" brings some very interesting evidence to that statement.
• Nutritional values of foods served to children at schools. 
• Children in schools are not receiving the nutritional meals they deserve. Most schools are filled with vending machines where children are getting their lunches and snacks from.

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