Читать книгу Counseling the Contemporary Woman - Suzanne Degges-White - Страница 127

Cultural backgrounds greatly influence the ways an individual views and experiences development over the lifespan. Expectations about the weight and meaning of transitions varies across cultures. For instance, while regular physical activity is empirically proven to have strong physiological and psychological benefits for many of the concerns and symptoms for which midlife women seek treatment, a woman’s ethnic identity influences her attitude toward exercise and activity engagement (Im et al., 2013). Both Caucasian and Asian women felt that engagement in fitness activities would positively affect their appearance and their ability to meet cultural standards of beauty, while both African American and Hispanic women noted that they did not feel the same pressure and voiced acceptance of their own individual appearances.