M. Gordon's Taxonomy of Functional Health Care

Health Perception/Health Management. An important element of health perception in the Mexican-American community emerges as body mass and weight. This has implications for overall health management because of the connection that perceptions of health have with other aspects of health; in other words, health perception has fundamental importance to general good health. In this regard, Alexander and Blank (1988) found that mothers of a group of obese Mexican-American children preferred plump babies. On the other hand, an implication of body health as arising from cultural health is a factor that must be noticed, a point to which we shall return in a discussion of nutrition and metabolism. This study, however, found as well that those mothers of obese children were obese themselves.

It is not indicated in the scope of that study exactly the extent of the impact of maternal psychology and cultural-values transmission that is prevalent in the Mexican-American community; however, the preference for fatter children indicated in the subject community suggests that such preference is at

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cceptable male and female behavior, as noted elsewhere in this research. Psychology of behavior is not the same, however, as formal education. Indeed, it is the evident lack of education among a significant percentage of the Mexican-American population that appears to have the effect of inuring to the generalized detriment of population segments that are at health risks. Lack of health knowledge surfaces in multivaried ways where the health of the Mexican-American population is concerned. Resistance to breast feeding among young mothers in the community in the Baja-California area implies a baseless notion among that segment regarding the health-related importance of that activity (Gulino and Sweeney, 1989), or sociopsychological influences of fathers on the activity of breast feeding as it may impact on sexual life (Sweeney and Gulino, 1987). Although a good deal of health-related activities of the Mexican-American community is, as will be noted hereafter, connected to the psychosexual relationships within that community, much health-practice pathology seems attributable to a simple lack of information, based on a lack of education. In part, this can be located in the diffidence with which non-English-speakers encounter
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Sherman Clark, Latin American, Deyo Holmes, Kerr Ritchey, Alexander Blank, Cognitive/Perceptual Health-related, Sweeney Gulino, Mexican-Americans La, Hundred Solitude, Anglo Mexican-American, mexican-american community, latin american, health nursing, kerr ritchey, mexican american, mexican-american migrant, obesity mexican-american, public health, lower socioeconomic, kerr ritchey 1990, community health, migrant farm workers, exclusively spanish-language version, kerr pender sechrist, obesity mexican-american preschool,
Approximate Word count = 3873
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)