The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

358 Chapter 10

countries, women were more likely than men

to report that they avoided high-fat foods, ate

more fruit, ate more fiber, and limited salt.

Among college students in the United States,

females report a better diet than males among

all ethnic groups except Hispanics, in which

case there is no sex difference (Courtenay,

McCreary, & Merighi, 2002). Among children,

the picture is more complicated. One-third of

high school girls and boys eat fruit or drink

100% fruit juice; boys are over twice as likely

as girls to drink three or more glasses of milk a

day, but boys are also more likely than girls to

drink soda each day (Centers for Disease Con-

trol and Prevention, 2010a).

Women are more likely to perform

regular self-exams, to have a regular physi-

cian, and to have regular checkups (Courte-

nay et al., 2002). Women are also more likely

to take prescriptions as recommended and

to return to the doctor’s office for follow-up

care. Among adults, more men than women

do not see their physician on an annual basis

(Pleis & Lethbridge-Cejku, 2007).

One reason women have a regular phy-

sician and have better preventive care hab-

its centers on reproductive issues. Women

regularly visit the doctor for pap smears,

mammograms, birth control, pregnancy,

and postmenopausal symptoms. Men do not

have the same regular life events or health is-

sues early in life that require establishing a

regular physician or routine physician visits.

However, even when reproductive visits are

excluded from analyses, women still visit the

doctor more frequently than do men. In a

sense, it is difficult to account completely for

reproductive reasons when examining sex dif-

ferences in the use of health care services. We

can certainly count the number of visits attrib-

uted to reproductive issues, such as pregnancy

or contraception, but we must consider that

women are more likely than men to become

involved in the health care system in the first

TAKE HOME POINTS

■ Artifactual explanations for sex differences in health in-

clude men’s higher SES compared to women and physi-

cians’ differential treatment of women and men.

■ Although men have a higher SES than women and SES

is clearly related to health, SES does not appear to ac-

count for sex differences in health in the United States.

■ Men have higher rates of heart disease than women,

but women’s disease is more advanced at diagnosis

compared to men.

■ Women are treated less aggressively than men for

cardiac disease, in part because some treatments are

less effective and riskier for women than men, in part

because symptoms of heart disease are more ambigu-

ous among women than men, and in part because

physicians attribute cardiac symptoms to psychological

causes in the presence of stress among women.

Health Behaviors

One class of variables that may explain sex

differences in mortality and morbidity are

health behaviors. These include risky be-

haviors, such as smoking, alcohol abuse, and

drug abuse, as well as healthy behaviors, such

as preventive health care, exercise, and diet.

These behavioral factors contribute to sex dif-

ferences in the leading causes of death—heart

disease, lung cancer, chronic lower respira-

tory disease, accidents, suicides, homicides,

and liver disease. Now that people are living

longer and dying of chronic diseases, behav-

ioral factors may play a larger role than biol-

ogy in sex differences in mortality.

Preventive Health Care

Women are more likely than men to believe in

the value of preventive health care. Women at-

tach greater importance to healthy eating than

men (Wardle et al., 2004). Across 23 different

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