Psychology of Health and Illness: A Critical Analysis of Fatima's Case

Psychology of health and illness
Psychology of health and illness
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Psychology of health and illness
The case presented here is that of Fatima, a 30 year old who lives with her children. Their
life is that of struggles and they cannot afford a good meal, she does not smoke either but one
day she collapses and is diagnosed with hypertension. This write-up aims at critically analyzing
the situation and examines the psychological constructs at the various stages of health but in
relation to Fatima’s situation.
Healthy psychology is basically the study of all possible physical illness and it in particular
addresses problems such as that of obesity. Well, for our case, we can simply conclude that
Fatima suffers some aspect of obesity (Laher & Ismail, 2012).This is evident since we are told
that she works 50hours a week and cannot afford fresh fruits and vegetables for their meals and
as a result they mostly eat processed foods.
As we all know, no one is actually responsible for their illness. This is because of the fact
that illness often arises from various biological changes that are beyond the control of an
individual, an individual is thus regarded more as a victim (Ogden, 2012). Health psychology
suggests that some certain factors are actually responsible for illnesses in the human body. It’s
not just a single factor but rather a combination of several factors. Like for this case of Fatima,
hypertension maybe as a result of quite a number of factors. Her age here comes into play, she 30
years old with two young children and to make matters works she works 50 hours a week. Her
diet is might also be another possible cause. We are told that Fatima cannot afford fresh fruits
and vegetables for dinner and most of the times they buy processed foods.
Psychology health aims at monitoring and looking keenly at quite a number of things. For
instance, it tries to assess the role of behavior in the development of various illnesses, it also