HEALTH SOCIILOGY Class & Illnessrelated behaviour Essay

HEALTH SOCIILOGY Class & Illnessrelated behaviour - Essay Example Thus, manual working class groups are seen as a more probable victim of this habit rather than the management or professional classes. The first and foremost social factor that affects the habitual addiction to smoking is the environment surrounding the individual. The living conditions of these workers are poor and dire. Many live in stressful lives in squalid and overcrowded homes. The best escape from all of this frustration is smoking which provides a stimulus to forget other problems. Also, in an atmosphere where each individual seeks to pass time using smoking, it is difficult for an individual to escape the vicious pattern unharmed. Another aspect attached the poor living conditions are how the families live in such close quarters that the children are affected by the adults. For the child to see a older individual smoking is the sort of parental and adult model that is set out for them. As they continue with life, the environment around them forces them into a state of peer pressure that instills smoking as a habit (Pedersen and Lavik). Another factor affecting smoking is the varying degree of education given to the different classes in a society. While the upper classes get the knowledge useful in their choices, the lower ones lack this kind of proper education (Layte and Whelan).