IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v18y1984i9p757-766.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The use of food to treat and prevent disease in chinese culture

Author

Listed:
  • Koo, Linda C.

Abstract

Interviews of 50 Chinese families in Hong Kong in 1981 indicated that the proper selection, timing and preparation of food was the most salient lay method of dealing with the prevention and treatment of some 59 common symptoms and illnesses. The food prescriptions and proscriptions were based on the traditional concept of maintaining body homeostasis through avoidance of: (1) excess 'hot'/'cold' or 'wet'/'dry' qualities of body energy; (2) disturbance of energy flow; or (3) inadequate energy levels. Various health problems were classified as being due to imbalances of these energy states. Excess 'hot'/'cold' or 'wet'/'dry' ailments were dealt with by increased consumption of foods of the opposite character; those due to disturbance of the normal flow of energy was avoided by the reduced intake of 'irritating' or 'poisonous' foods; and various tonics were believed to raise the amount of energy flow in the body. A rich knowledge of complex dietary rules was found to be prevalent among the lay public because the traditional rules filled explanatory and behavioural niches left open in Western medicine. Dietary manipulation was used to complement Western medicine in the multiple stages of the disease process by playing a predominant role at the beginning and end of the period of pathogenesis.

Suggested Citation

  • Koo, Linda C., 1984. "The use of food to treat and prevent disease in chinese culture," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 18(9), pages 757-766, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:18:y:1984:i:9:p:757-766
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(84)90102-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xiaoning Zhang & Diana Margot Rosenthal & Lorna Benton & Monica Lakhanpaul, 2020. "Cultural Influences on Complementary Feeding Beliefs amongst New Chinese Immigrant Mothers in England: A Mixed Methods Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(15), pages 1-21, July.
    2. Green, Gill & Bradby, Hannah & Chan, Anita & Lee, Maggie, 2006. ""We are not completely Westernised": Dual medical systems and pathways to health care among Chinese migrant women in England," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(6), pages 1498-1509, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:18:y:1984:i:9:p:757-766. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.