For the men of college age, the risks of disease, injury, and death are far greater than for women of the same age group, yet college men’s health concerns receive little attention from health professionals. Men’s socialization as boys provides a structure for understanding why many college men have adopted unhealthy lifestyles. How masculinity and stereotypes about adulthood influence the health services provided for men are outlined. We need to equally stress the importance of providing gender-specific health behavior interventions and programs and encourage future research into the specific needs of these young men.
Gender is one of the most significant determinants of health behavior. Research constantly shows that men engage in far fewer health-promoting behaviors and have less healthy lifestyle patterns than women. Research reviewing nationwide data and hundreds of large studies has revealed that men of all ages are more likely than women to engage in over 30 controllable behaviors that are conclusively linked with a greater risk of disease, injury, and death. For example, they consume fatter and less fiber; they sleep less; and they are more often overweight than women.
College men, specially, also engage in far fewer health-promoting behaviors than college women. For example, they constantly score lower on an index of health-protective behavior that includes safety belt use, sleep, health information, eating habits, and exercise. College men are also extensively less likely to practice self-examinations for testicular cancer than college women are likely to practice self-examinations for breast cancer. Additionally, college men’s health-promoting behaviors have been found to decrease over time, while those of college women increase.
Men engage in riskier sexual practices. Between college students, men begin sexual activity earlier in their lives, have more sexual partners, and are more likely than women to have sex under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. College men, for instance, are 2 times more likely than women to have had more than 10 sexual partners.
A wealth of research has exposed, a recent study of California college students reveals that men are more likely than women to engage in 20 of 26 specific high-risk behaviors, including behaviors related to smoking, drug use, carrying weapons, and physically fighting. Between college students in New Jersey, men are more likely than women to engage in 12 of 14 high-risk behaviors. Recent nationwide data show that more than 1 of 10 college men carries a gun, knife, or other weapon, nearly 3 times the number of women who do; and students who carry weapons are far more likely to drink, and to fight if they binge drink.
Their hazardous driving habits compound the risk associated with not wearing safety belts. Only one third to one half of sexually vigorous college men uses condoms. Still Between young gay and bisexual men, a recent study found that one in four is having unprotected anal intercourse-and although the college men in this study were somewhat less likely than their no collegiate peers to have unprotected sex, the difference was not statistically significant. This extensive failure to wear condoms compounds the risks associated with college men’s unsafe sexual practices.
Although simply being male is linked with poor health behavior and increased health risks, so is gender, or men’s beliefs about “being a man”. A growing body of convincing research provides evidence that men who adopt traditional attitudes about manhood have greater health risks than men with less traditional attitudes. For instance, a large study of 13- to 19-year-olds reveals that alcohol use and problem drinking is strongly associated with traditional masculinity, and that this association is even stronger than the link between drinking and being male. Findings from a nationwide study of nearly 2,000 young men aged 15 to 19 years, including college men, reveal that traditional beliefs about manhood are associated with a variety of poor health behaviors, including drinking and drug use and high-risk sexual activity.
Between college students, traditional attitudes about masculinity have similarly been linked with poor health behavior, including smoking; alcohol and drug use; and behaviors related to safety, diet, sleep, and sexual practices. Compared to their a smaller amount traditionally minded peers, college men who rigidly adhere to traditional notions of masculinity have more anxiety and poorer health habits, greater cardiovascular reactivity in situations of stress. College men who adopt time-honored attitudes about manhood experience higher levels of depression, and are more vulnerable to psychological stress and maladaptive coping patterns; furthermore, these men compound their risks because they tend not to seek help from others and underutilize professional services on campus. Using of alcohols makes the men’s body more weaker than women.
Study shows that men-including college men-are far less knowledgeable than women about health in general and about specific diseases, such as cancer, STDs, and risk factors for heart disease. College men also know extensively less about self-examinations for testicular cancer than college women know about self-examinations for breast cancer. Most recent studies of college students’ knowledge have examined danger factors for HIV and AIDS. The majority college men have had relatively little experience with the health care system and may lack even basic health information, such as how to make an appointment.
Men’s ignorance about health matters can boost their risks. Health knowledge is also linked with health-promoting behaviors, such as sunscreen use and self-exams. Even though the influence of knowledge on sunscreen use has not been researched among college students specifically, young adults with knowledge about skin cancer and sunscreen use are more likely than those with less knowledge to take precautions in the sun and to use sunscreen frequently. Men with fewer knowledge are also less likely to feel comfortable telling their doctor they have an STD, or to have talked to a health professional about risk assessment, getting tested, or prevention. One evaluation of research concluded that knowledge is also an important determinant of positive change in sexual risk behaviors related to AIDS. Between college students, however, this finding is not consistent. A number of studies have linked knowledge with decreased HIV risk among college students; however, knowledge alone is not necessarily sufficient to promote safer sex practices.
Men’s are having harmful attitudes and behaviors are not surprising in light of their socialization. Youthful men and boys receive many contradictory messages about health while growing up. A health professional might support a young man to seek help when he needs it; yet research repeatedly shows that parents, other adults, and peers all discourage boys from seeking help-and ridicule and punish them when they do. Likewise, health education campaigns attempt to teach young men that it is wrong to be violent, yet they are encouraged to use aggressive force in sports, the military, and business. TV programs are 60% more likely to portray boys using violence than girls, and they further demonstrate that violence is an effective means for men and boys to attain their goals. Boys are too encouraged to fight. 3/4 of Americans believe that it is important for a boy to have a few fistfights while he is growing up.
Youthful men also receive mixed messages about drinking. At the same time as health professionals encourage abstinence, young men grow up in a society that consistently conveys the message to them that drinking is part of being a man. An evaluation of research examining representations of alcohol in various forms of media reveals an unmistakable link with masculinity. The authors also give compelling evidence that “advertisers further the association between alcohol and masculinity by inter joining their products with athletic events and by strategically placing ads in magazines and television programs with predominantly male audiences.”
Stereotypes about men and boys are deeply well-established in society. These stereotypes add to the invisibility of men’s health risks and to men’s poor health behaviors. Boys are showing to these stereotypes from infancy. When public are told that an infant is male, regardless of its actual gender, they are more likely to believe that it is “firmer” and “less fragile” than when they are told that the same infant is female. Health professionals are not protected to stereotypic perceptions. For example, sexual category role stereotypes influence the diagnostic decisions of mental health clinicians, and diagnoses are often made on the basis of whether or not patients conform to traditional gender roles.
The penalty of these stereotypes can be damaging to men’s health. One new large and well-constructed study found that mental health clinicians were significantly less likely to diagnose depression in men than in women; in fact, they failed to diagnose nearly two thirds of the depressed men. Accordingly, more women are treated for depression, and these higher treatment rates-along with studies relying on self-reports, such as the college survey cited above-have contributed to a cultural perception of men’s immunity to depression. This perception endures in spite of suicide rates-which are indexes of depression-that are, as noted, as much as 12 times higher for men. The finding that despair is undiagnosed in many men is particularly relevant for college health professionals. As noted above, there are no important gender differences in diagnosable depression among college students. Undiagnosed sadness in young men may contribute to their extraordinarily high rates of suicide.
