BODIES THAT INHERIT: EPIGENETICS, ENVIRONMENT, AND WOMEN'S HEALTH

Abstract

To tell you what you'll find here, I invite you to learn about Ayó's story.
Ayó was born in a territory where care has always been scarce and survival the rule. From an early age, she learned that the female body is not just biology, but a field of disputes, silences, and resistance. She grew up hearing that she needed to be strong, even when her exhaustion was greater than her age. She never named what she felt, but her body registered every tension, every fear, every adaptation necessary to continue living.
In her youth, invisible pressures arose: to be productive, to be desirable, to be healthy, to be everything at the same time. The weight wasn't just on the scale, but in social demands, deregulated hormonal cycles, sleepless nights, and clinical decisions made without qualified listening. Ayó went through quick consultations, standardized prescriptions, and guidelines that treated symptoms but didn't reach the roots of her suffering.
Over time, her body began to speak in other ways. Metabolic changes, emotional fluctuations, persistent exhaustion. Each diagnosis seemed isolated, but in reality, they were all part of the same plot: the interaction between environment, life history, social inequalities, environmental exposures, and fragmented healthcare. Ayó realized that she didn't suddenly get sick. She was slowly shaped by multiple determinants that permeate the lives of many women.
At different times, she faced dilemmas common to women's health: contraceptive choices with unexpected emotional repercussions, metabolic changes associated with the lifestyle imposed by social demands, psychological suffering related to hyperproductivity, and, above all, the difficulty of being understood holistically by health services. Each experience brought new questions about her own body, about the limits of medicalization, and about what care really means.

Ayó's story is not extraordinary because it is rare. It is powerful precisely because it is common, because it is repeated in multiple clinical contexts, doctor's offices, primary health care units, and hospitals. It is the story of women who carry biological, emotional, and social marks on their bodies that are rarely analyzed in an integrated way.

Throughout this book, Ayó's experiences will serve as a guiding thread to discuss, in a critical and evidence-based manner, how biological, metabolic, hormonal, psychological, social, and environmental factors interact in the production of women's health and illness. Her journey allows us to see beyond isolated symptoms and understand women in their totality, highlighting the need for more sensitive, interdisciplinary clinical practices committed to rights and comprehensive health care.

The authors.