Growing Up Poor: Criticizing and Evaluating the Program Coverage Area

SOCIOLOGY OF HEALTH
(Topic: Growing Up Poor)

The program "Growing up poor" has covered the social condition of people who live in
Claymore, Australia. This place is renowned for anti-social and criminal activities. Lack of
education, awareness, and employment are the main reason behind the issues of this area.
Physical and mental health issues are there in this part of Australia and all of these issues
must be mitigated. Aim of this essay is to criticize this program and evaluate its coverage
area. Background and findings of this program are being evaluated critically with the help of
related existing literature. I have also provided recommendations for improvement are
included in this essay.
In this article, different health issues like mental health issue, early pregnancy, drug addiction
related to children are discussed. In Claymore, the rate of teen pregnancies is more than the
national average by 5% (Abc.net.au, 2012). Claymore is one of the poorest suburbs and
children of this place have less knowledge about early pregnancies and its harmful impacts.
As opined by Pontius and Vieth (2019), different health impacts are visible on a teen mom,
which includes depression, baby blues. Poor physical condition is another harmful impact of
early pregnancy like anxiety, fatigue and panic attacks. I think that the narrator has handled
the situation well and collected information about their knowledge regarding this health issue.
While analyzing the article, I found that Vicky and Jessica were ignorant about this problem
and they were ready to have a child at this early age.
Drug addiction is another essential health issue that is highlighted in this article. In claymore,
teens and children are addicted to drugs and alcohol, which is impacting on their normal
growth. According to me, lack of proper support and education is impacting on this problem.
Residential drug treatment can help to mitigate this problem but in claymore, government has
not taken enough action to mitigate this problem. Kristen is the mother of three children and
she is scared to let her children play outside to avoid the problem of drug addiction and abuse
(Abc.net.au, 2012). Mental health issue is the main problem among children that are
highlighted throughout the article. Lack of education, good environment, improper bond in
society and family is impacting children mentally. This is causing depression and they are
losing hope. The article has covered everything that impacts on mental health of children.
This includes the poor relationship between parents, less scope of education, improper
government support, degradation of society. However, I found that different other health
issues like disability among children are not covered. A large proportion of claymore
residents are disabled including children (Claymore Urban Renewal Project, 2011). Special
health requirements and supports are needed for disabled children that are not highlighted in
this report.
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This program has covered mainly the social condition of Claymore people. The organizers of
this program have taken an innovative step of getting information from children. As stated by
O'Reilly and Dogra (2016), adults may hide many things while answering a question about
their lives. However, in the case of children, they are innocent and there is a high chance to
get the truth. In this case, I found that the reporter has taken a humble approach to deal with
issues. Claymore is one of the most ignored places of Australia as the culture of this place is
not sophisticated and many health issues are there. Throughout the interviews of children of
this place, it has been found that early pregnancy, drug addiction, and mental health issues
have become part of their daily life. The reporter has communicated with children to know
their viewpoints towards life. A good approach and attitude have been found throughout the
entire program. After knowing all issues, all of the respondents were treated with respect and
care (Abc.net.au, 2012).
It is important to identify the background information about an issue. Here, in this program,
background information has been gathered to understand the reason behind identified health
issues. As argued by Galderisi et al. (2015), people learn from their surroundings and their
upbringing reflects on their behavior. Coverage of this program has revealed that most of the
children are watching fights between their parents every day. Some of them have seen their
fathers beating their mothers. I think that these kinds of experiences are impacting on the
mind of children and they are suffering from mental health issues. Lack of parental control is
allowing them to misbehave, taking drugs and being involved in anti-social activities. As
contradicted by McLachlan et al. (2018), a health issue can occur due to a lack of awareness
regarding the issue. This program has covered the issue of early pregnancy. Pregnancy is a
natural thing, but early pregnancy impact on the physical and mental condition of the mother.
As stated by Cook and Cameron (2015), pregnancy in teenagers is not desired as it impacts
on their lives. This program has found information regarding pregnancy in teenagers at
Claymore. It seems like all of the people of this place is accustomed to this fact and they are
dealing with it every day.
Lack of education has been found as the main reason behind early pregnancy, drug addiction,
and other issues. As mentioned by Currie and Rossin‐Slater (2015), education and parental
control in early life help to stay healthy and fit. The reporter has interrogated and found that
children of this area are not interested in going to the school and lack of parental control is
allowing them to do so. However, they have missed gathering information regarding other
health issues of this community. They could have investigated the cases of chronic diseases
outbreak and other health issues in this area for making this program stronger. They could
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