I am a human biology major so the biological approach will be the best way for me to learn and study about health because it is the approach that I have been doing most of my college career. Environment, genetics and individual choice are the three main focuses from this approach and I believe those to be very essential when trying to understand someones health status. I hope to use all the other approaches, but this one will give me the most insight.
Until this reflection I thought that disease and illness were the exact same definition. However, looking more closely I finally figured out the difference. Disease is the actual abnormal condition and illness is the human response to it. A disease would be the infection and the illness would be pain, confusion, distress, etc.
The culture that Miner is talking about in the Nacirema article is the North American culture. I first picked up on this when they were talking about the market economy and the economic pursuits that peoples time was devoted to.
Two of the rituals that I found in the article was 1) The ritual of the charms and medical potions in the box on the wall and 2) The rituals of the mouth. Both of these rituals relate back to the health of the the Nacirema culture. The charms and potions that are in the box help keep the people alive and protect them from getting sick. They are dependent on the medicine man who gives them these charms and they believe that without these their will be health complications. Mouth rituals are also important to their health. Nacirema culture value this because they believe it is a “supernatural influence on all social relationships”. Without this ritual they believe that their teeth will fall out and gums will bleed.
The way that Miner describes all the rituals is quite interesting and brilliant.