Women's Health Fears Often Don't Line Up With Reality

Women's Health Fears Often Don't Line Up With Reality
Heart Disease Claims the Most Lives, But Cancer Is Feared More
Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Venture


According to Kagan, E., the latest survey done by the Society for Women’s Health Research shows that some certain diseases that scare women a lot are in fact not those that cause major mortality among women (Emily Kagan, Jul. 7, 2005, ABC news). For instance, while cancer is the No. 1 frightening disease in women’s minds, heart disease kills the most in reality. And while women ignore emphysema, the No. 4 killer, they rank HIV/AIDS as the fourth scary illness, which is indeed not among the top ten killing diseases. Experts are worrying that the discrepancy between women’s fears and reality will lead to women’s ignorance of those really fatal diseases. However, at least women are aware of some of the ailments. The next thing for women to do is to bridge the gap between their fears and reality, and to take action to prevent the diseases.

To my surprise, those top ten killing diseases are really far from women’s commonly known diseases. While some of the diseases are left out in the list, it seems that the advocacy groups of ovarian cancer and breast cancer have been doing so well that we become keenly aware of them. In my opinion, although the gap between fear and reality is somewhat wide, it is better for women to be conscious than unaware. In this mundane world, people are highly likely to get bad habits and live unhealthy lifestyles. We all know that, and we always receive teachings from the elders and warnings from the media. However, we have been learning the importance of health and the terror of disease, but we merely become anxious and do nothing. I think it is really important for us to do something to stop the preventable tragedy from happening. The perception of illness is just a beginning, despite the fact that there is still a long way to go; whether we take the awareness into action is what really matters.

BAY