Health Campaign to Create Awareness on the Increasing Obesity and Its Ill-Effects - Research Paper Example

Health Campaign to Create Awareness on the Increasing Obesity and Its Ill-Effects Introduction ‘Health People 2010’ is a public health campaign of the US government, that aims to improve the overall health factor of US citizens, and in the process provide for a better standard of living, for the next 10 years (2001-2010). This campaign has been designed to specifically classify the factors causing health hazards, which are preventable by nature. As the factors are identified, national goals are established, which would help to reduce these health hazards. The chief objectives of Healthy People 2010 are: “(1) to increase the quality and years of healthy life for everyone—to add years to our lives and life to our years, and (2) to eliminate health disparities so that all people have access to better health care and opportunities” (Healthy People 2010-Overweight and Obesity, 2001, 1). With 28 areas of main focus and 467 identified objectives, there are 10 health indicators that have been zeroed on, to indicate and also effectively measure, the overall US health scenario. Amongst the 28 main areas of focus, overweight and obesity is of primary importance within the section covering nutrition. Healthy People 2010 have been designed by Federal agency, with support from “350 national membership organizations and 250 state health, mental health, sub-stance abuse, and environmental agencies” (ibid). Besides these, there are also websites where one can communicate to give and receive information; and there are also meetings organised at the various regional and national levels to make this health campaign a success. The draft to this campaign also took into account 11000 comments from the public forum, to give it a balanced overview. Discussion A specific issue and nationally identified health objective: The main aim of Healthy People 2010 campaign is to increase the overall health factor of the average US citizen. Rising obesity is a major problem causing grave concerns in the medical fraternity, as obesity is also associated with various other health complications, like diabetes, heart ailments, and arthritis, amongst many others. This health campaign is mainly aimed to decrease the percentage of children, adolescents and also adults, suffering from obesity and overweight problems. The objective of this programme would be to reduce the risk of obesity by assisting people to eat balanced meals, less caloric food, and also to increase the level of physical activities. A look at our national health record would show us that, today, USA is facing a major health crisis, in the form of obesity and overweight. It has affected all age groups, and includes even very young children, along with the average American adult (around 107 million US adults are estimated to fall in the obese/overweight group). As Todd Jenkins in his peer reviewed research article tells us, “The obesity epidemic in the United States worsens with each passing year. From 1991 to 2002, the prevalence of obesity has increased more than 80%, representing an estimated 43 million adults in 2002” (Jenkins, 2004, Introduction). The seriousness of this problem can be adjudged, when we find that every year USA records around 2,80000 to 3,25000 mortalities, owing to various medical complications arising from obesity (Allison, et al., 1999). Community and targeted population: A closer look into various research works highlights certain specific target groups that are more prone to obesity. According to various surveys, it has been seen that American women with poor educational qualification and belonging to the financially weaker social section, are more prone to become obese. It has also been noticed that Hispanic and African-American women are more likely to be overweight, than their white American counterparts. In case of African-Americans it has seen that women are more prone to obesity than men (around 80% more); such skewered gender ratios in case of obesity is also noticed amongst the Hispanic Americans; though the Caucasian group ratio for obese women and men, are almost same (Healthy People 2010-Overwight and Obesity, 2001, Table 1, p.2). Another major area of concern is the rising prevalence of obesity amongst American children and teenagers, especially those from lower income households (owing to consumption of energy-rich, high fat foods, that are low in nutrient levels) which may lead to serious medical complications in them. So the targeted population consists mainly of women and children (especially those with African-American and Hispanic American racial profile), from the lower income social strata, having poor educational qualification. The federal, state, and local agencies tasked with tackling this rising health threat: "It takes a village to raise a child (or develop a state plan)" (an African proverb cited in Healthy people 2010, Identifying and securing resources). The stated proverb very amply sums up the amount of human resources necessary to successfully complete a project of such epic proportions. At the national level The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) is in charge of co-ordinating the entire Healthy People 2010 programme. Other national level organisations working in this regards are Healthy People Steering Committee, Secretary’s Council on National Health Promotion, Disease Prevention Objectives for 2010, and Healthy People Consortium. These are supported by various medical associations like, American Dietetic Association (ADA) and American Hospital Association (Healthy people 2010, Identifying and securing resources- leadership and structure). At the state level, various committees and sub committees are formed under the supervision of the state health departments, which oversee the running of the campaign. Performance targets are set and “Agencies must identify benchmark links and report on progress toward achieving the performance targets” (ibid). Reports detailing the same have to be presented to the respective state legislation, in order to show the direction of activities related to the program, and also to take a measure of the progress achieved. Models and systems used to determine and analyze this issue: The issue of obesity is determined mainly from studying the BMI of individual patients. This index is used for screening, for obesity and overweight. Though it is acknowledged that the BMI does not represent a true health oriented definition of obesity, there are no other relevant definitions given, or any other process outlined for correctly measuring the overweight factor, as of yet. BMI or the body mass index, also known as the Quetelet Index, is the process of measuring the medically correct body weight, on the basis of that person’s height and weight. It gives us an estimate of what the body’s supposed healthy weight should be, based on an individual’s height and taking into account an assumed average body composition. BMI is technically defined as an individual person’s body weight divided by the square of his height. Thus, BMI= Mass (body weight in kg)/ (Height in meters) 2. Since BMI is easy to calculate it is the standard diagnostic tool used for measuring average obesity problems within a specified population, and is measured in terms of overweight/obese, and underweight/ thinness (for diagnosing eating disorders). Classification BMI(kg/m2) Principal cut-off points Additional cut-off points Underweight Read More