Sociology of Health: Analysis of the 'Growing Up Poor' Program

This essay critically analyzes the 'Growing Up Poor' program, which documents the social conditions in Claymore, Australia, a suburb known for its high rates of anti-social behavior and criminal activity. The essay focuses on the program's coverage of various health issues, including teen pregnancies, drug addiction, and mental health problems among children. It highlights the impact of poverty, lack of education, and inadequate government support on the community. The essay evaluates the program's approach, particularly its use of interviews with children, and identifies both strengths and weaknesses in its coverage. It also provides recommendations for improvement, suggesting the need for a broader investigation into government support and other health issues, like chronic diseases, and the inclusion of adults' perspectives. The essay concludes that while the program successfully captures the social conditions of Claymore, there is room for improvement in addressing serious health issues and promoting healthy practices within the community.

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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have asked those children about their health condition and more investigation could be done
on their mental status. This program has not encouraged the respondents to get educated.
Main focus of this program was getting information, rather than contributing to the
improvement of the situation. I feel that the reporter could encourage children and their
parents to adopt healthy practices that can help them to avoid health issues. Hence, it can be
said that it was a good approach but could be better than this.
The report covers vital health issues of children on the claymore, which I think is a good
approach. Claymore is considered as a low social community in Sydney. As stated by Karoly
(2016), harmful impacts of poor economic condition are mostly faced by children as they
lack proper education, nutrition, and support from society. The narrator has depicted all the
factors like poor relations between parents, economical impact on education and toxic culture
in a systematic way. Moreover, conversation with children has enabled me to analyze the
impacts of those factors on their daily life. I fully agree with the coverage because it shows
the negative influence of parents, community members on children. This coverage shows that
negative factors like relationship of parents, inadequate growth opportunities is directly
impacting on behavior of children. As stated by Liotti (2017), changing relationship in
society and family directly impacts a child mentally and increase aggressiveness. According
to me, decaying social relationships in Claymore has influenced the rise of crime and abuses
in this part of the country.
Apart from family issue, another essential topic is highlighted in this article, which is
bullying. Jessica’s brother Hayden is just 14 and he has faced bullying in school for his dress
and look. This is one of the serious factors that cause mental health issues among children
and impact on their education. Bullying can be considered as misuse of power in a
relationship that can be done through verbal, physical or improper social behavior
(Education.vic.gov.au, 2018). As said by Wolke and Lereya (2015), repeated incidents of
bullying in a child can influence to get detached from society. Other problems like increase of
aggressiveness, depression, and anxiety occur. The narrator could have given more focus to
this topic because it is a major problem that is faced by many children in society. Hayden has
faced bullying in school due to his identity as he belongs from a backward community.
Moreover, poor general health of children living in this area is highlighted through this
coverage. I fully agree that the poor economic condition of families living in claymore is
creating a barrier for parents to provide proper nutrition to their children. It can be seen that
between the conversation of Vicky and Jessica it was found that Vicky has to skip school due
to tonsillitis. These are bacterial infection that causes due to improper care and poor nutrition.
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As said by Wenhold et al. (2016), lack of proper nutrition in children decreases their ability
to resist diseases. This has a direct impact on the education and normal growth of children.
Lack of government support is covered in this report as poor planning has increased problems
of this community. They receive less job and educational opportunities. Besides, poor health
support has impacted on general health of children. Lack of knowledge regarding healthy
lifestyle has increased the problem of childhood pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse, and
others. This side of report needs to be elaborated more in future. I feel that in this report,
more coverage could be done by the narrator to gain clear knowledge about government
support and lacks in planning. It is mentioned that federal and state labor governments have
started a multimillion plan for the redevelopment of claymore. However, after knocking
down a few houses the project has stopped, which has increased hardships of people in this
area (Abc.net.au, 2012). However, I personally think that more knowledge about government
health support and other programs are required to make judgments regarding this factor. The
report can also cover failure of government regarding distribution of money, power, and
resources in this part of Sydney.
This program has not investigated in detail regarding the lack of employment opportunity for
these people. Many families were found those do not have any earning members. Poverty is
preventing them to have health care services. The developers of this program could focus on
available healthcare services for people of Claymore as well.
Hence, it can be analyzed from the article that children who are growing up in low social
capital communities did not have proper control over their negative surroundings. As said by
Hussein et al. (2018), children from poor communities believe that they have no or less
control over personal life, education and future opportunities. The children of the burns
family have low self-esteem and efficacy.
From the entire criticism of the “Growing up poor” program”, it can be concluded that
poverty affects the lives of children. Mental and physical health issues take place due to lack
of awareness and poor culture. I found that this program has successfully captured the social
condition of people who live in Claymore. It has been understood that asking questions to
children is more helpful than asking questions to adults. Children of Claymore have
expressed their feelings, thoughts, and experiences in simple words and this aspect has helped
in identifying health issuers of this place. It has been found that children of this place are
experiencing domestic violence, poverty, and toxic culture. It has been revealed the early
pregnancy is very common in this community and many children are a drug addict. They are
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being influenced to commence criminal activities. Lack of parental control is one major
reason behind these issues.
Organizers of this program could try to make people aware of this place regarding good and
healthy practices. Serious health issues have not been investigated and I found it as a gap in
this report. This program could investigate about serious health issues of this community. It is
recommended to take another initiative to communicate with the adults of this place to
identify more issues of them. Developers of this program may seek attention from the
government of this country. The government must be asked to take initiatives to improve
health condition of people of Claymore. In this program, encouraging children for education
was missing. It is recommended to program designers to ask reporters to encourage children
to go to school to get educated. Having basic education can help them to get a good job in the
future and they will be able to get rid of issues including early pregnancy, drug addiction, and
others.
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Reference list
Abc.net.au (2012), Growing up poor, available at: https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/growing-
up-poor/4279854 [Accessed on 29th September 2019]
Claymore Urban Renewal Project (2011), Social and Health Impacts Report, available at:
https://majorprojects.affinitylive.com/public/0584072e47082ab5d7710bb0a8a4b98b/
Appendix%2011%20Claymore_Social_Impact_Report_040811.pdf [Accessed on 29th
September 2019]
Cook, S.M. and Cameron, S.T., 2015. Social issues of teenage pregnancy. Obstetrics,
Gynaecology & Reproductive Medicine, 25(9), pp.243-248.
Currie, J. and Rossin‐Slater, M., 2015. Early‐life origins of life‐cycle well‐being: Research
and policy implications. Journal of policy Analysis and management, 34(1), pp.208-242.
Education.vic.gov.au (2018), Bullying, available at:
education.vic.gov.au/about/programs/bullystoppers/Pages/what.aspx?Redirect=1 [Accessed
on 29th September 2019]
Galderisi, S., Heinz, A., Kastrup, M., Beezhold, J. and Sartorius, N., 2015. Toward a new
definition of mental health. World Psychiatry, 14(2), pp.231-233.
Hussein, S.Y., Swanepoel, D.W., De Jager, L.B. and Mahomed-Asmail, F., 2018. Knowledge
and attitudes of early childhood development practitioners towards hearing health in poor
communities. International journal of pediatric otorhinolaryngology, 106, pp.16-20.
Karoly, L.A., 2016. The economic returns to early childhood education. The Future of
Children, 26(2), pp.37-55.
Liotti, G., 2017. Conflicts between motivational systems related to attachment trauma: Key to
understanding the intra-family relationship between abused children and their abusers.
Journal of trauma & dissociation, 18(3), pp.304-318.
McLachlan, S., Dube, K., Buchanan, D., Lean, S., Johnson, O., Potts, H., Gallagher, T.,
Marsh, W. and Fenton, N., 2018. Learning Health Systems: the research community
awareness challenge. Journal of innovation in health informatics, 25(1), pp.038-040.
O'Reilly, M. and Dogra, N., 2016. Interviewing children and young people for research. US:
Sage.
Pontius, E. and Vieth, J.T., 2019. Complications in Early Pregnancy. Emergency Medicine
Clinics, 37(2), pp.219-237.
Wenhold, F., Muehlhoff, E. and Kruger, H.S., 2016. Nutrition forSchool-age Children.
Community Nutrition for Developing Countries, p.104.
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Wolke, D. and Lereya, S.T., 2015. Long-term effects of bullying. Archives of disease in
childhood, 100(9), pp.879-885.
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