TARE, JAED ELAINE A.

BSN 2-C
JANUARY 08, 2021

INTERVIEW ON CULTURAL HEALTH PRACTICES

Name: Allayzah Abdulla
Gender: Female
Religion: Islam

Question. What health practices your culture has that you think affects your lifestyle?

According to her, one of the most important thing to remember when talking about health is
that illness, suffering, pain, and dying are tests from Allah and perceive illness as a trial by which one's
sins are removed. They relate certain importance to health so they take good care of their selves.
One practice that she thinks that affects her health is eating pork which is Haram. We all know
that pork is a great source of protein, vitamins and minerals. So for her, since eating pork is not allowed
for their culture, they replace it with other food like chicken or eggs. This way, they can still have the
important minerals their body needs. Another cultural practice is the fasting every Ramadan. They
abstain from drinking, eating and even doing something inappropriate to their religion and culture from
dawn until dusk. This practice affects her health because in a day, we need to be able to eat for at least
three times a day. Since fasting means no water nor food intake for a certain time then the body will
weaken because it can’t receive the energy it needs daily. When this happens, the body will go into
shock and it could result to serious complications sometimes. For Allayzah, she has been used to fasting
since she’s been doing it for so long now. She said that it’s okay as long as she is doing it for Allah. Her
body doesn’t react the way it reacted for the first few fasts from before. In connection to this, getting
sick during Ramadan is difficult because they can’t take oral medications and injecting IV Fluids because
this breaks the fasting because it involves intake to the body. This greatly affects one’s health because
when you have a flu or you feel sick or if you’re not feeling well, you should get treated because this
tends to develop into a more serious problem if left untreated but because of this cultural practice, it
becomes difficult to be treated.
Overall, everyone belongs to a different culture and their beliefs, practices and tradition are also
different from one another. In order respect these differences, we need adjustments and understanding
from and of one another. Just like Allayzah, her cultural practices might affect her health but there’s still
a solution to it. There’s an alternative and it doesn’t mean that they’re neglecting their health, there are
practices that should be followed strictly, for example is Allayzah’s culture.