Search

This qualitative study investigates health care practitioners’ approaches to early childhood obesity in Denmark and their view on their own ability to initiate processes of change in affected families, and it asks the overall question of whether perceived barriers become real through practitioners’ reluctance to intervene in families labelled as ´problematic’. The paper identifies three approaches in the practitioners’ narratives: the socially oriented, the individually oriented, and the mixed. The individually oriented approach was based on a logic resembling individualistic explanatory models of behaviour change, and was related to a positive perspective on their own ability to move families towards healthier habits by health care practitioners. The socially oriented approach borrowed elements from a sociological perspective, which seemed to lead to resigned pessimism in the face of the complexity of the problem of childhood overweight and a reluctance to address early childhood overweight in some families. In practitioners of all three types, widespread cultural essentialism was found. Non-western, ethnic minority background was seen as determining family habits and making preventive action especially difficult. Based on this, the current paper discusses whether individual actions and choices are being ascribed too much explanatory power, and the health system's biased perceptions too little. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Menopause is an important health transition for women, but health-related research has largely failed to account for menopause in a meaningful way, especially when making group comparisons. Age often stands in for menopausal status; at times, it is treated as a dichotomy; however, these are clearly oversimplifications. Menopause is a process that takes place over several years, and varies in onset, length, and expression through symptoms. Defining menopause dichotomously or linking it with age obscures variability in women's experiences and overlooks patterns in physical health, mental health, and quality of life. This paper reviews research to highlight menopausal differences by age, race, and lifestyle factors in the United States. It suggests ways to incorporate a life course-based view of menopause in health research, improving our understanding of women's health outcomes on multiple dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has been one of the most important movements in clinical medicine and public health in recent years. At the heart of the EBM movement lies the Cochrane Collaboration, an infl uential organisation that produces systematic assessments of healthcare interventions known as Cochrane reviews. Although Cochrane methods were initially designed to test the efficacy of medical therapies, the desire for 'evidence-based' practice has pushed the movement far beyond its initial scope into the assessment of complex social phenomena. Through an examination of one particular Cochrane review -- Physician advice for smoking cessation -- this paper highlights the limitations of EBM 'creep', and some of the more problematic conceptions of human nature underwriting Cochrane principles and methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary health policy increasingly positions responsibility for the management of health with the individual which reflects newer neo-liberal discourses of health. Such an approach can be seen as problematic in the context of men's health, with men tending to be seen as largely 'irresponsible' towards their own health. This paper addresses this question by drawing on qualitative data on how men conceptualise responsibility for health. Whilst the desire to be responsible for health was borne by most of the men in the study, this was not always reflected in practice. There was also evidence of strategies that men adopted for either divesting themselves of responsibility for health or for legitimising lack of responsibility. In some instances, acting 'irresponsibly' was what defined participants as 'real men'. The implications of these findings for men's health policy are discussed with specific reference to the recent publication of Ireland's National Men's Health Policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]