Free Essay Example On Cultural Differences

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A study was conducted by Basia Belza (PMC, 2014) in order to assess the hurdles and differences in being more physically active, among older adults of ethnically different groups. With old age comes less physical activeness and the desire to exercise decreases significantly. In order to observe the differences that lie between the racially diverse older adults, a group of several old people of various races were chosen to be examined in the study.
Narrowing the focus of the study, there were seven ethnic diversities chose which included older adults from American Indian/Alaska Native, African American, Filipino, Chinese, Latino, Korean, and Vietnamese ethnicities. (PMC, 2014). The reason for this diversity was that minorities living in the country were usually suffering from chronic diseases and the reason for this was the lack of sufficient physical activity in the old age. African-Americans, Latinos and Filipinos have a higher rate of heart disease and diabetes than whites.
In order to probe further as to how to make these adults more comfortable in the experiment they were given audio tapes for their convenience and their physical movements and exercise were recorded. There were several findings from their limited movements that pointed out to their lack of physical activity. The major findings of the experiment were to discover the various differences that lay behind the lack of willingness to exercise. The first that the participants agreed on was the activeness and motivation they got from being physically active, irrespective of what ethnicity they belonged to. It was taken as consensus.
Secondly, many pointed out their family as their source of encouragement to be more physically active. A Korean said he knew his family suffered from his illness. Another African American participant said that his son bought him an odometer to measure how far he could walk.
The biggest reason was the Ethnic difference that was pointed out due to which these culturally diverse people suffered. American Indians had low self-esteem and thought they could not fit and hence were cornered out. African Americans had the idea that friends are the ones who encourage a person to be more physically active. However in the group of more diverse ethnicities the African Americans tend to follow their own rules and not merge with the rest of them.
Cantonese speaking Chinese were another group who had a more positive response towards exercise due to their heritage. They were usually interrupted by exercise by an unexpected visit from someone. The Koreans also exercised well, but they did not feel well merged with the rest of the group especially with the rest of the Koreans. Filipinos were also positive with exercise yet they feared of robbery, theft, murder or fear of getting hurt if they ventured out their surroundings for exercise.
The Latinos focused more on music, singing and dancing as the better forms of physical activity and preferred these over the usual ways. The Vietnamese group was supportive of exercise, but their barriers were geographical and they lived far from friends to exercise together. The cultural differences amongst all these people inhibited them from living a healthy life, feeling unsafe or left out or not being able to associate with others who didn’t speak their native language.
The article suggested that in order to lessen the amounts of chronic disease amongst the ethnically diverse groups, it was important to remove barriers to communication, address their issues of safety and try to eliminate the cultural differences in order to aid them and alleviate their problems. Cultural differences and lack of understanding between groups have heightened the cases of diseases and health problems in the country.

References

Basia, Belza. (2014). Older Adult Perspectives on Physical Activity and Exercise: Voices From
Multiple Cultures. Retrieved from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1277949