Bailey Miller

Student ID - 2152725
Assignment 1 -Reflective Journal

Health is a wider topic than I originally perceived.

With a wide

holistic view health varies in many different areas and important

matters. Germov states in chapter one, health sociology exposes
the forest through the trees how individual health problems can
be part of a social patterning of illness that has social origins and
requires social solutions (Germov, 2014. P. 5).

I perceive this is

stating that health is a broad subject it can involve a number of

topics on different levels.

I will speak about my original thoughts

on health and how they have now varied and dramatically changed
throughout the past four weeks.
From drawing a diagram of what I perceived health to be in week
one compared to the diagram I have drawn in week four there was a
dramatic difference but some similarities. In diagram one I drew a
simple person running with little detail only thinking about the minor
aspects of health, the physical side, just assuming that this was the
major and most important part of health.

Currently now in week

four I have re drawn my view on health, it involved a group of

people, different races, and religions with different socio economic
statuses and a variety of personal and family health issues.

In

chapter four Germov states that Health is not just a matter of

providing the best treatment; it is also about cultural beliefs and
cultural heritage(Germov, 2014. P. 72). This is a serious point that
has now been indented in my mind, this caused me to re-think and
interpret my thoughts on religion and race in the diagram drawn in
week four.

It involved arrows explaining the different viewpoints in

greater detail, and an explanation of each individual.

This helped

me understand health in a wider aspect although there are a

number of similarities there are many thought-provoking differences
that I need to continue to think and elaborate about over the
upcoming weeks.

(Germov, 2014. P. 45) speaks about gender and sex in the wellness
and well-being aspect, he explains about Cultural identities and
values that prescribe how men and women should behave. To me
this quote means that there is a distinctive line between men and
womens behaviour and their thoughts.

Relating this back to my

views on health and discussing this in the workshop in a way I

understood helped me distinguish my idea about this.

The task

completed with the social media photos and discussing our views
relating back to social media camouflaging showed a big difference
again.

Men and women both had separate ideas as to what this

means for example, the boys went straight for the weight lifting and
gym approach as the girls went for the healthy eating, nutrition
aspect and mental health side. This task helped me gain a better
understanding of the different equality between men and women.
Changing my viewpoint on health once again, as I start to think
about health as something equal and not divided, these thoughts
were included in my diagram drawn describing health in week four.
Learning

about

health

intrigues

me

and

is

motivating

and

challenging me to discover a broad understanding of health

concepts. I envisage that by the end of the semester I will be able
to show an interesting comparison between the three drawings
representing my progression of understanding.

Reference List Journal 1

Germov, J. (2014) Imagining Health Problems as Social Issues
Chapter 1 in J. Germov (ed.) Second Opinion 5th edition South
Melbourne: Oxford University Press.