Essay On Health Issues

Health issues throughout the human lifespan are always hard to deal with. In this essay, I will give examples of different health issues that occur throughout the lifespan of a human. The seven different stages of a human’s lifespan include: infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood. By the concluding paragraph of this essay, you will have gained knowledge of some of the health related issues of a given person throughout their lifespan.
First of all, infancy, early childhood, and middle childhood are the first three stages of the human lifespan. During infancy in 1955, out of every 1,000 babies that were born, 210 of them died of serious illnesses before their fifth birthday; however,

by 1995, the death rate of children fell to 78 per 1,000 babies (WHO, 1998). Many health issues may occur within a child’s first year of living; such as: malnutrition and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Malnutrition is caused when an infant is not receiving an adequate amount of nutrition in its diet. Sudden infant death syndrome is when a healthy infant suddenly dies without a cause. Within early childhood, diphtheria and scarlet fever are two serious illnesses that could occur if precautions are not taken. Diphtheria is an extremely contagious bacterial disease that causes a membrane in the throat to form which complicates breathing, swallowing, and could cause nerve damage to a child; however, immunizations are used to help stop this disease. Scarlet fever is an infection that causes a red rash to form; this is caused by streptococcal, or strep throat. Middle childhood has two health issues and they are asthma and accidents. Asthma is a condition of the respiratory tract where spasms of the bronchi tubes of the lungs occur due to sensitivity to allergies or other air borne pathogens. The leading cause of deaths in this stage are accidents (Papalia, n.d.).
Next, adolescence and early adulthood have many major health issues that occur within these stages of development. During adolescence, a couple of health issues that occur include: alcohol and/or substance abuse, and sexually transmitted diseases. Alcohol/substance abuse begins to occur around this stage of development, because teenagers are learning about new and exciting things that they want to try with their friends without knowing the full consequences of their actions. Sexually transmitted diseases are mainly in this age group, because not many teenagers know the consequences of not using protection, such as condoms; also, teenagers rarely get treated for their STD’s, because they are afraid of being criticized or they do not know the symptoms of them. Early adulthood usually involves the deeper health issues; examples are as followed: diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver. Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce a sufficient amount of insulin that is needed to function properly. Cirrhosis of the liver is a type of disease from scarring of the liver tissues; alcohol and/or hepatitis are the causes of this disease.
Finally, as we get into middle and late adulthood, the risks of health issues become greater, because our systems decrease with age.

When a person is at the stage of middle adulthood, his or her body changes drastically; for instance, women go through menopause and erectile dysfunction occurs in men. Menopause is when a typical woman (between the age of 45 and 50) has a discontinuation of her menstruation. Erectile dysfunction is when a man is unable to withstand a long lasting erection for sexual activity. As we move into late adulthood, our memories begin to get a little fuzzy and we have a fear of Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s is defined as the deterioration of a person’s mental processes. These are only a few health issues that can occur in late adulthood.
In conclusion, health issues are worried about all throughout a human’s lifespan. We cannot help, but wonder why these illnesses must continue to hurt the ones that we love. However, it helps for people to know and understand the types of illnesses that their loved ones could be faced with within their lifetimes. In this essay, you were informed of a few different types of health issues that occur through the eight different stages of a human’s

lifespan.